Soul Mirror
by Archontruth
Summary: The Kyuubi has granted a wish Naruto Uzumaki never should have made. Now he must come to terms with a terrible power he cannot control. Allies and enemies alike are in the crosshairs as Naruto delves into the lost past of a dead village seeking to understand and harness the Kyuubi's spiteful gift before it destroys everything – and everyone – he has fought for.
1. Patient Zero – Sakura Haruno

**Chapter 1: Patient Zero – Sakura Haruno**

* * *

Naruto Uzumaki and Sakura Haruno strolled through the streets of Konoha together for the first time in six years. Their faces were flushed with excitement and victory. Both had a simple silver bell in their pocket, a token of their success in passing Kakashi Hatake's test and earning the accolades of their former sensei. They knew they would be teamed with Kakashi many more times in the future, but it would be as fellow shinobi, not as sensei and students.

With occasional sidelong glances, Naruto marveled at how much Sakura had changed in in the last six years he had spent travelling and training with the Toad Sage Jiraiya. Gone was the uncertain girl who had frozen in combat on their first C-rank mission. Sakura was a powerful and confident kunoichi now, the prize pupil of Tsunade Senju, the Fifth Hokage. Her skill in medical ninjutsu surpassed that of all but Tsunade and Shizune, and Sakura had mastered Tsunade's technique of monstrous strength, as the broken and cratered ground of the training area where they had tested themselves against Kakashi could attest. Since witnessing his pink haired former teammate's power Naruto had taken extra care to watch his words. Sakura's angry blows to his head had hurt enough when they were genin; now she'd probably put him in a coma if he upset her.

But then, Naruto reflected, he wasn't the brash boy he had been the last time he saw her either. Six years of training with Jiraiya had expanded Naruto's abilities by leaps and bounds. Being away from the village for all that time meant that Naruto was still a genin, while all of his peers including Sakura were chuunin or jounin by now, but the disparity in rank didn't faze him; Naruto knew he had surpassed all of them in strength, even if his trump cards – his hard-won control of the Kyuubi's chakra and his work perfecting the rasengen – weren't something he would ever consider unleashing in a sparring match. What the Kyuubi's rage had done to Jiraiya during training the only time he lost control had been bad enough.

Glancing at Sakura again, Naruto was uncomfortably aware of the other changes time had wrought. He'd had a crush on Sakura since they were in the academy together, but they had been twelve when they parted ways; now they were both eighteen, and the passage of years had transformed Sakura from a pretty girl into a beautiful woman.

When he started his journey, Naruto had been mystified by Jiraiya's predilection for spying on women's baths in the towns they stayed in, but by the end of the trip he'd developed an appreciation for the pervert sage's 'research'. Naruto had never fallen as far as drooling and scribbling notes like Jiraiya did, but he couldn't deny the appeal of watching water and steam caress the lovely forms of bathing beauties from between the slats of the wall around the pools. Now when he looked at Sakura old infatuation, new knowledge of the female form and a vivid imagination combined in a way that was damnably distracting.

Corralling his imagination was taxing enough that he stopped paying attention to his surroundings until he saw Sakura pause, a sad look on her face. Then Naruto heard the voices coming from the open-air café on the other side of the tall hedges that lined the road.

"Oh god, say it isn't so!" one woman's voice exclaimed fearfully.

"It's true," this was a male voice, laden with contempt. "My cousin was on duty at the gate when that damned _thing_ walked back into town, with Jiraiya of the Sannin at his back, no less."

"I suppose it was too much to ask that after six years that freak could have just died somewhere far from here," this was a second female voice with a tone of pure venom. "I thought I would vomit the first time I saw that blond devil wearing Konoha's hitai-ate. It dishonors the memory of all the ninja that he killed."

"Careful the ANBU don't hear you talking like that," the male voice said with bitter sarcasm. "The Third Hokage executed people for talking about that little monster, and I hear the Fifth practically adopted the freak. I guess the village has to control his power, even if being near him turns our stomachs."

"To hell with the ANBU; what are they going to do; execute me too?" The second woman's voice was rich with scorn. "They can go ahead; then I could see my husband and my father again, and I wouldn't have to see the fox demon that killed them soiling this village with every breath he draws while wearing our emblem."

Naruto felt his cheerful smile melt away, his expression settling into a ninja's "work face"; a blank mask that gave away nothing. Anger sparkled in his eyes at the disparaging comments about old man Sarutobi and Tsunade, but mostly he just felt despair consume him. He barely noticed Sakura slipping her hand around his shoulder. "Don't listen to them Naruto," she murmured. "C'mon, let's go get some dinner at Ichiraku's." Even the prospect of a visit to his favorite ramen stand after years away didn't seem to lighten the black cloud weighing on him. He let Sakura lead him further down the road, away from the voices burned his ears with their hate.

All that time away from Konoha had allowed Naruto to hope that the old memories and old hatreds of the villagers would fade; that he could come home stronger than ever, protect the village and prove himself; that he could become Hokage and gain Konoha's acceptance. But those cruel, hateful, bitter voices were no different than the ones that had lashed at Naruto's ears all of his life. As a child Naruto hadn't understood why the villagers all hated him; it had been Mizuki's cruel revelation on the day he graduated from the academy that had laid the truth bare; he was the prison of the Nine-Tailed Fox, and most of the villagers saw the beast that had butchered their families and friends when they looked at him. The other members of the Konoha Eleven had accepted him when he explained the truth to them before leaving with Jiraiya to train, but for the older villagers, it seemed that nothing would change their minds.

_Why can't they understand that I'm not the Kyuubi; I'm the prison that keeps the village safe from it! Everyone venerates the Fourth Hokage for sealing the Fox away and saving the village, but they hate the person he put the demon in. It's not fair!_ Naruto fought the self-pitying thoughts, but coming face-to-face with the village's undiminished hatred after six years was devastating._ I wish I could make them all understand how I feel!_

**If that's really what you wanted, kit, all you had to do was ask,** replied a sly, rumbling voice inside Naruto's mind. The voice was deep and distinctive enough to make Naruto's body quiver, and his head snapped up in alarm. It was a voice he'd heard only a handful of times during his training with Jiraiya.

"Kyuubi?" he murmured in surprise. The Nine-Tailed Fox had never talked to him without Jiraiya opening the seal on his stomach before. "What are you doing…" his voice cut off as he felt the bijuu's malevolent power flow out of the seal and flood his chakra network. He was too surprised to stop it; the Kyuubi had never willingly given him chakra before save when he was close to death.

Naruto shuddered as the chakra burned through him, rising from his stomach to his head. It concentrated there, the discomfort growing to a burning pain in his skull. The discomfort focused further and Naruto stumbled, falling to his knees. His eyes felt like they were on fire! The pain made his vision blur and then go dark.

* * *

Worried about how miserable Naruto looked and how he'd shut down in an instant when he heard those awful people talking, Sakura frowned when he stumbled, then watched in alarm as he sank to his knees, clutching his head.

"Naruto, what's wrong?" Sakura asked sharply, crouching beside him.

"Don't know… the Kyuubi just did something. My eyes are burning, and… I can't see, Sakura," he said through gritted teeth, his clenched fists testament to his pain.

"Let me look at them," Sakura demanded. When he turned to her, she gasped. The entire surface of both of Naruto's eyes had become a shifting riot of colors, jumping from blue to orange to green to violet to gray and through several more colors each second. "You said the Kyuubi did this?"

"I think so," Naruto said, then frowned. "Weird… the pain's going away now." Sakura watched as his eyes slowed down in their kaleidoscope of color before settling into the strangest appearance of all; the surfaces of his eyes became perfectly reflective, like curved mirrors. Sakura could see her distorted reflection in each orb. For a moment she thought she could see her reflection in his eyes reaching out _towards _her, and felt a chill run down her spine. "Hey… I can see again," Naruto said with surprise. "Huh. Well that was strange."

"Naruto, I need to get you to the hospital. Tsunade-sama should have a look at you," Sakura insisted as he got back to his feet, seemingly no worse for the wear. _Tsunade, Shizune… we should probably talk to Jiraiya as well if the Kyuubi's involved,_ Sakura thought with alarm, dropping into 'medic mode' and planning what to do as she retained her grip on Naruto's arm and started leading him towards the hospital.

Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Nah, Sakura it'll be fine. The Kyuubi messes with me when he can, I'm sure this is just some new trick of his. Granny Tsunade's busy; I don't want to bother her."

Sakura looked back at him in disbelief. "No Naruto you need to go to the hospital, your eyes…" when she looked at the reflective orbs, her thoughts turned slipperier than eels. _What was I going to say about his eyes?_ For the life of her Sakura couldn't remember what had been so unusual. Her reflection in his eyes gave her a reassuring smile.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head with his usual embarrassed grin. "It's probably nothing, Sakura. I'd feel really silly getting granny Tsunade and everyone else all worried over it. Really, I feel fine."

Sakura felt her worry disappear, and felt faintly embarrassed herself; Naruto knew how to deal with the Kyuubi; that was the point of all of his training with Jiraiya. If he wasn't worrying, why should she? There was no use in alarming everybody if Naruto had it under control.

A stray thought at the back of Sakura's mind was insisting that what she'd seen was strange and she needed to be sure he was okay, that it was her duty as a medical ninja, but that thought couldn't find purchase.

Naruto face brightened up as he seemed to remember what she'd said earlier. "C'mon Sakura, let's hurry over to Ichiraku's," and then he was off in search of his favorite food, everything else forgotten. Slightly bemused Sakura followed him, unable to shake the feeling that she was forgetting something important, but the beginnings of a craving for ramen of her own banished those thoughts.

An hour later, Sakura leaned back on her stool, regretting the second large bowl of ramen she'd ordered. Usually she didn't even finish one regular portion, and she'd never had a chance of keeping up with Naruto, who was sitting in a happy stupor amidst a dozen empty bowls. But tonight his appetite had been… infectious, and Sakura hadn't been able to help herself.

The ramen chef Teuchi and his daughter Ayame had been overjoyed to see Naruto, their favorite customer, back in the village after so long. They'd actually shut down the stand after preparing a ramen feast and sat down with them, listening to Naruto's stories of his travels. She'd never seen the pair of them so cheerful; Naruto's mood was contagious. Over the meal the last bits of worry clinging desperately to the corners of Sakura's mind slipped away. Teuchi and Ayame had known Naruto even longer than she had; if something was wrong, surely they would have noticed.

When the meal was over Naruto insisted on paying for both of them from his fat frog wallet, and after they bid goodbye to Teuchi and Ayame, they stepped out onto the street. "So good…" Naruto said with satisfaction. "I missed this place more than anything while I was away," he declared, before glancing sideways at her. "Except for you, Sakura!" he added with a cheeky grin.

Sakura's normal response to a comment like that from Naruto would have been a snort or a punitive blow to his fuzzy blond head, but tonight she felt a faint warmth flow through her at his compliment. "Liar," she said lightly, teasing. "It's okay, I know Ayame is the first girl in your heart," she said with a jerk of the head back towards the brunette ramen stand waitress.

Naruto chuckled. "I guess I should head home and get some sleep. I'm sure the Hokage will have missions for us soon." As he spoke, a small group of village women came walking down the street. When they spotted Naruto they deliberately crossed the street to avoid him, whispering amongst themselves as they went. Sakura felt her own anger building, and she clenched her fists, about to go give those women a piece of her mind, when sadness quenched the rage, and her hand fell back to her side. What was the point? They'd never accept Naruto, even after all he'd done. If single-handedly saving the village from Gaara during the Sound and Sand invasion hadn't proven he was a hero, what would?

Glancing back at Naruto, she knew that he'd seen them too, and been reminded of what they'd heard earlier in the day. His shoulders took on a dejected set as he started to trudge back to his apartment. Sakura thought about Naruto going back to that empty apartment of his alone in such a down mood, and shook her head. "Naruto, my place isn't far from here. Why don't you come over for some tea before you head home?" The least she could do was try to cheer him up.

Naruto perked up at the offer. "Are you sure? I don't want to be a bother."

"Oh it's no bother, I spend so much time at the hospital I hardly ever get to have company over. It'll be fun." Naruto looked so pleased that Sakura felt better about the offer.

Sakura's apartment was just a few blocks away, and Naruto looked impressed when she opened the gate to her apartment complex. "This is a nice area, Sakura," he commented.

Sakura nodded. "I actually share an apartment with Ino. Even with a medic's pay on top of occasional missions I couldn't afford to live here on my own."

"Oh, cool. I haven't seen Ino since I got back," Naruto commented as they climbed the stairs.

"She has the graveyard shift at the hospital tonight, so she won't be getting home until much later this evening, but I'll tell her you want to catch up when she has a chance."

Sakura let them into the apartment, and got some tea started. The pair settled down on the couch in the living room, and Sakura started a comedy playing on the TV that they only half-paid attention to as Sakura caught Naruto up on what had happened to their friends while he was gone, and he told her about his training with Jiraiya, and the places all over the Elemental Nations that they had travelled. Sakura found herself slightly envious of how many places Naruto had gotten to visit. They'd both been studying under Sannin, but Sakura's studies had kept her closer to home. "I actually wind up taking fewer missions each year; at this point I only get sent out for A and S-ranked missions where they're going in expecting heavy fighting and the need for a medic on the scene."

When Naruto caught Sakura stifling a yawn, he glanced at the time. "Wow, it got late really fast. I should let you get to bed."

"Yeah, it's past my bedtime; morning rounds at the hospital start early." Sakura put her hand on Naruto's shoulder, giving him a steady, encouraging look. "Don't let the village idiots get you down, Naruto. You'll be a great Hokage, and for every moron like the ones we saw today there are others who are cheering you on."

"Thanks, Sakura," Naruto said.

Because she was looking him in the eye, she saw the moment that her reflection in his eyes reached out towards her, its fingers beckoning her closer even though she hadn't moved her own body. Startled, she leaned forward to get a better look, and after a moment his mirrored eyes drifted south. Realizing that she had inadvertently given Naruto a good look at her cleavage down the top of her vest, her cheeks turned as pink as her hair. Sakura's initial impulse to apply her fist to the crown of Naruto's perverted head derailed when she was blindsided by the strongest wave of lust and arousal she had ever felt in her life.

Her jade eyes went wide as a flush of heat ran through her body, forcibly reminding her that between wasted years pining for a certain duck-headed Uchiha and long shifts at the hospital, she hadn't been on a date or spent time with a cute guy in far too long. She'd taken a shot at dating Kiba a year previously once he wore her down with admittedly charming persistence and it had been nice while it lasted, but it hadn't worked out and there hadn't been anyone after. Sakura was shocked with how strongly her libido was reminding her that there was a ripped, handsome blond right in front of her.

"Sakura," Naruto said huskily. When she didn't pull back his hands rose, gripping her shoulders.

Sakura felt almost like she was falling into his quicksilver eyes, her pink-haired reflection beckoning and moving closer in tandem with her like moths drawn to a flame. When he leaned forward and kissed her, her struggling train of thought not only derailed but exploded into a million flaming pieces. Things got fuzzy for a while after that, and a minute later Sakura slowly started realizing that she was in Naruto's lap, and her arms were wrapped around his neck. Not only was his tongue in her mouth, but she was returning the favor. She barely managed to untangle her arms from his neck before her fingers rebelled and started unzipping his long-sleeved orange and black top.

Sakura shivered when she felt his fingers slip under the edge of her red vest and his hands hiking up the material, running up the bare skin of her ribs. She moaned, her lips hard against his. Desire and need like she'd never felt in her life slammed into her; needing to be wanted, needing to be loved and to be held. Her gaze met Naruto's mirrored orbs, and even though they were locked in a kiss she could see her face reflected in his eyes, her double's lips moving, forming words she could almost understand.

Her red vest fell to the floor moments later, discarded, and it wasn't until she took note of Naruto's surprised and lustful glance that she remembered what she was wearing underneath. It was had been laundry day that morning and all of her regular underwear was dirty, so she'd had to dig out the scandalous, lacy black bra and panties that she'd tried on and bought at a risqué boutique last year after losing a bet with Ino.

"That's so sexy, Sakura," Naruto said in a hoarse voice that pulled at something below her stomach. Then he was trailing light kisses down her neck and collarbone, and Sakura shamed herself with a needy groan. _Where did Naruto learn this? Was he getting tips from that old perv Jiraiya? Or has he been with other girls while he was on the road?_ Sakura was surprised by the jealousy that thought evoked. Needing to be closer to him, to feel his skin, she got his zippered sweatshirt off of him, but lost patience with the black t-shirt underneath and simply tore it off of him with a burst of chakra-enhanced strength.

"Damn Sakura, what's gotten into you?" Naruto inquired, groaning as she ran her nails lightly down his bare, muscled chest.

"This isn't about what's gotten into me, it's about what's going to get into me," she said, the thought turning to words and spilling from her lips before she could censor them_. Oh my god did I really just say that? _Sakura blushed crimson at Naruto's surprised look that quickly turned to something hungry; Sakura barely noticed her reflection in his eyes winking at her. She'd never been this out of control in her life and it shocked her to the core. W_hat __**has**__ gotten into me?_

Then Naruto was kissing her again, and pulling her to her feet, and she was kissing him back as they stumbled towards her bedroom, and her rational mind was screaming a dozen reasons why this was such a bad idea, but her rational mind was getting clobbered by the fiercely insistent new part of her that wanted this, wanted it now and damned the consequences. Then Naruto was lowering her back onto her bed, and he'd made her bra disappear at some point during the trip. His lips closed over one hard nipple and she cried out, fingers running through his hair, and Sakura knew she was lost. Fierce, aching need took over.

* * *

Since her graveyard shift at the hospital didn't end until five in the morning, it was almost noon when Ino Yamanaka stumbled out of her room, bleary eyed and seeking coffee. Once the life-giving black beverage had been brewed and consumed along with some buttered toast and fruit, the blonde Yamanaka clan heir was alert enough to notice that something was different. _Sakura never snores like that,_ Ino realized, the muffled noises from behind her roommate's closed bedroom door finally registering.

Glancing into the living room, Ino's eyes widened slightly as she saw Sakura's red top lying on the floor by the couch. "Oh, no way," Ino murmured, a mixture of disbelief and gleeful anticipation in her voice. Getting up from the kitchen table, she crept back into the hallway, and her jaw dropped when she saw the lacy black bra Sakura had sworn she'd never wear draped over the handle of her bedroom door.

"Sakura, you naughty minx!" Ino exclaimed in delight. She'd been after her roommate for years to spend fewer evenings in the hospital and more of them out on the town. Dedication to your work was admirable, but Ino worried that billboard brow was missing out on being young and single, and all the yummy shinobi boys she could be wrapping around her fingers.

Ino and Sakura rarely intruded on each other's privacy, but Ino couldn't resist hanging around to see who her roomie had brought home. Sakura hadn't talked about any guys recently – hadn't been seen with any since breaking up with Kiba – and Ino was burning with curiosity. She didn't have to wait long; less than half an hour later she was reading a magazine in the living room when Sakura's bedroom door opened. Ino's green eyes were met by half-lidded blue ones staring from underneath a mop of disheveled spiky yellow hair. "G'morning," Naruto greeted her sleepily. Sakura was nowhere to be seen.

"Naruto?" Ino screeched in shock.

* * *

Sakura Haruno was going through her morning rounds at the hospital on auto-pilot, her mind a million miles away. Consultations with patients, healing wounds and mending broken bones went by with half of her attention while she struggled to come to grips with the events of the last day.

_I had sex with Naruto,_ was the stark, jarring thought that kept revolving through her mind. _I can't believe I did that._

_**I can't believe it took you this long,**_ Inner Sakura cackled gleefully. The return of her opinionated alter ego was another thing worrying the pinkette. Inner's activity had waned as she'd gotten older and more confident in expressing herself to her peers, and her other half had barely spoken up in the last few years. But ever since she'd woken up in bed with Naruto this morning, his arms wrapped around her and the heat of his body pressed against her back, Inner had returned with a vengeance, and wouldn't give her a moment's peace.

In the light of day her jumbled thoughts still refused to be untangled. When she'd woken up Naruto had still been sleeping, and without him looking at her or touching her in distracting ways she'd been able to summon the willpower to throw on some clothes and flee to the hospital.

_**You should have called in sick, woken him up and picked up where you left off,**_ Inner Sakura butted in with her unwanted opinion, and Sakura closed her eyes, seeking some order in her head, because a dangerously large part of her had wanted to do that. It still did, here in the hospital, miles away from Naruto. _**All that jinchuuriki stamina is good for more than fighting,**_ Inner reminded her unhelpfully. _**He kept you going half the night and wore. You. Out.**_

_Oh my God shut up!_ Sakura mentally screamed at Inner, her alter ego's gleeful laughter all the more infuriating because she couldn't deny it. Sakura wasn't a virgin; she'd slept with Kiba while they were dating, but nothing had prepared her for whatever it was Naruto had learned on his extended road trip; she hadn't realized sex could be that good. _Why can't I stop thinking about that,_ Sakura reflected morosely._ What's gotten into me?_

_**This isn't about what's gotten into me, it's about what's going to get into me**_, Inner parroted her words from the previous night, and Sakura was grateful that she was between appointments, because her cheeks turned scarlet and she buried her face in her hands.

_Leave me alone, please, _Sakura begged Inner, who only cackled gleefully in response. Determined to put Naruto and Inner out of her mind, Sakura got back to work.

* * *

An hour later Sakura Haruno was taking an elderly woman's blood pressure when her jade eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed to the floor without a sound.

* * *

_Author's Note: I have written this story in response to brown phantom's "Hidden Bloodline" challenge:_

"_We've all seen fics where Naruto inherits or gains a kekkei genkai and gets a scroll, relative, or a knowing teacher to teach him how to properly use it. So what if he got a kekkei genkai but he had __none __of those things to help him learn what to do with it? And he had to learn how to use it on his own through trial and error?_

_One, Naruto can only have one bloodline: __**Check**_

_Two, how he gets the bloodline can happen one of two ways: A. Inherit it from one of his parents or grandparents. B. Have the Kyuubi give it to him __**Check**_

_Three, the preferred time for him to get/awaken his bloodline is anywhere from the night he became a genin to the Sasuke Retrieval arc: __**Story starts at the beginning of Shippuden and the time skip was six years not three, because prude that I am, I prefer the characters to be legal (or pretty close) if there's going to be adult content.**_

_Four, Naruto can know two or three things about how to use his bloodline in the very beginning, but nothing that would make him competent in using it or higher than basic lessons. __**Naruto doesn't have a clue.**_

_Five, NaruHina is the strongly preferred pairing for this challenge. __**Check. While it may seem so from the first chapter, this is not a NaruSaku story."**_


	2. Outbreak – Ino Yamanaka

**Chapter 2: Outbreak – Ino Yamanaka**

* * *

Tsunade Senju didn't precisely run through the halls of Konoha's hospital, because seeing the Hokage running somewhere tended to make people start panicking. But she walked as quickly as she dared, and had made pretty good time from her office in the Hokage's tower when a messenger brought word that her apprentice Sakura Haruno had collapsed halfway through her shift and couldn't be revived.

Shizune, who had taken to the rooftops at full speed, had managed to beat Tsunade there by a solid margin, and was already standing over Sakura's bedside, a look of concentration on her face as she held her hand over Sakura's forehead, the green glow of medical chakra wreathing her fingers.

"Talk to me," Tsunade demanded of Shizune and the other medics clustered around Sakura, hooking her own to monitoring devices.

"There's nothing physically wrong with her," a tall medic with the dark hair and pale eyes of the Hyuuga said, veins around his eyes bulging as he looked into Sakura's body. "Signs of recent sexual activity, but to all outward appearance she's simply sleeping. She won't wake or respond to outside stimuli."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow at that first part, but put it out of her mind. "Since we started monitoring her she hasn't left a state of REM sleep," another doctor added, and Tsunade could see Sakura's eyes moving rapidly under her closed lids. "She's dreaming, but what brought on this state I can't say."

"I don't like this," Shizune commented distractedly. "The chakra patterns in her brain are like nothing I've ever felt before, and there's definitely a trace of foreign chakra in there. It almost reminds me of the aftermath of Itachi Uchiha's Tsukuyomi, but the outside chakra isn't what's keeping her unconscious and it's not a genjutsu; she should be able to wake up, but she won't respond. I'm tempted to dose her with some adrenaline, but her heart rate's already too high, and without knowing what's causing this it's risky."

Shizune withdrew her hand, and Tsunade performed the same diagnostic jutsu, closing her eyes as she surveyed the state of Sakura's mind. "You're right, Shizune, it's almost like she's in battle," Tsunade commented. "There was a foreign chakra in her mind, but most of this chaos in her head seems to be coming from her." Letting the jutsu fade, Tsunade glanced at Shizune. "Raise ANBU's alert level to yellow; we can't rule out an attack with mental ninjutsu. Get Inoichi Yamanaka down here, too. Maybe he can tell us what's happening in Sakura's head."

Shizune nodded and departed. Tsunade stepped back to allow the medics to finish hooking Sakura up to the monitoring devices, and turned to the Hyuuga medic, ushering him over to a private corner. "Define 'recent sexual activity'," she instructed.

The man coughed, looking slightly embarrassed. "Bruises from bite marks on the neck and collarbone and slight swelling in the erogenous zones; evidence of a pleasant evening, nothing more."

Tsunade nodded. Her apprentice's sex life was none of her business, but finding out what had happened to her was, and Tsunade wasn't aware of Sakura dating anyone since her break-up with the Inuzuka boy. "Swab the undersides of her fingernails and run a trace analysis. Contact me privately if you get DNA results. It may be unrelated, but until we know what's wrong I'd like to know who she was with anyways."

"Of course, Hokage-sama."

* * *

Ino Yamanaka rarely let anything distract her during a shopping trip, but for once even finding a cute outfit for 70% off or picking up the perfect fresh produce for dinner didn't have the same satisfaction that it normally did. It wasn't hard for her to identify the source of her disquiet; she couldn't wrap her head around Sakura taking Naruto to bed the same day he returned to Konoha after a six year absence.

Ino freely admitted to herself that Naruto had filled out quite nicely; he'd gone from being a cute kid to a handsome man. Even the whisker-shaped cheek marks added character to a handsome face and despite his baggy jacket and pants Ino could tell he was ripped underneath. No, Ino was puzzled only because she and Sakura had few secrets from each other, and Sakura had never spoken of Naruto as anything other than a friend. Ino knew a few things about friends becoming something more, but she also knew that Sakura wasn't the type to jump head-first into an intimate relationship with a friend. Kiba had chased her for years and they'd dated for months before the pinkette slept with him for the first time.

Ino didn't think Naruto had done anything shady like getting her drunk; he was the opposite of that kind of guy, and Sakura would break anyone who tried something like that. It only worried her because it made her think something was going on with Sakura that she wasn't talking about. Ino resolved to make something nice for dinner and try to get forehead to spill the beans on what was happening.

Ino had finished her shopping and was headed home down a widely trafficked boulevard lined with stores and sidewalk cafes when she became aware of a psychic projection faintly pushing against the edges of her mental defenses. Instantly on alert, Ino checked the status of the barriers formed around her mind, confirming that nothing had gotten through. Like any Yamanaka over the age of ten her mind was a fortress, protected by layers of mental ninjutsu and years of training that enabled members of her clan to not only probe and attack the minds of others but be absolute masters of their own psychic domain.

Scanning the street warily, Ino saw nothing amiss; throngs of civilians and the occasional ninja going about their everyday lives. But someone nearby was launching a mental attack of a type Ino had never felt before. Analyzing what it was trying to do to her brain, she concluded that it seemed to be based around emotional manipulation. As she looked around, her eyes were drawn to a throng of people milling around outside one of the sidewalk cafes; as she got closer, the pressure being exerted against her mind became stronger and more oppressive.

Elbowing her way through the throng of people – mostly civilians, a few shinobi but none she recognized – Ino emerged from the crowd to discover they were clustered around a table occupied by four familiar people. Naruto had has back to her, while Hinata Hyuuga, Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame were arrayed around the other three sides.

Naruto had just finished saying something, and Hinata responded without missing a beat. Watching the conversation, Ino was struck immediately by how… un-Hinata the Hyuuga heir was acting. Hinata hadn't been able to string two words together in Naruto's presence since she was eight years old, or even look at him without turning red, and being addressed by the blond tended to make her faint. But here was Hinata talking to Naruto and sitting close to him. She was smiling, putting her hand over his, and looking happy, calm and confident with no trace of a stutter or embarrassment.

Something was not right, Ino decided. Looking at Kiba only confirmed it; she'd never seen the Inuzuka so at ease. Members of his clan by their nature had a feral edge to them even among friends, but Ino wasn't picking up a trace of Kiba's normal aggressiveness, and Akamaru was sprawled out on the ground beside him looking happy and playful as a puppy, his tongue lolling out.

Then Naruto finished telling an anecdote about Jiraiya getting chased out of a town they'd visited after getting caught peeping on the local bathhouse and something even stranger happened. Hinata and Kiba laughed, but so did Shino. Ino's head whipped around, and her jaw dropped in shock. She had never heard Shino – or any Aburame – laugh; she'd never been aware they knew how. Moving closer to the table she could hear a faint buzzing coming from under Shino's jacket; a sound she'd only ever heard when the kikai bugs filling his body were severely agitated.

By the time Ino reached the table the mental pressure was strong enough that it was taking continual effort to resist it, which was alarming: whoever was doing this was targeting her friends. Looking around at the crowd surrounding them, it got even more surreal. Ino saw plenty of people, civilian and ninja, who hated Naruto, but now they were listening to him, smiling and laughing, without a black look or veiled insult.

Ino leaned over the table. "Guys, we have a problem. Someone's-"

That was as far as Ino got before she staggered back, one hand rising to grip her head as her mind's defenses came under such a powerful, concentrated assault that the ninjutsu barriers shook and very nearly crumbled. Gasping in alarm, Ino felt her vision swim, and had to pour her chakra into the walls of her mind to prevent herself by being swept away by the tide of raging emotional feedback that was trying to overwhelm her.

_This… shouldn't be possible!_ Ino thought in disbelief. Her father Inoichi was the only member of the Yamanaka clan who was more adept at psychic assault than she was, and reputed to be the foremost master of mental ninjutsu in the Elemental Nations. But Inoichi had never been able to strike at her mind this hard, even when he'd gone all out to test her skill before letting her apply to be promoted to jounin.

When Ino could breathe again, an island of calm battered by a relentless storm, she looked up to discover Kiba, Shino and Naruto on their feet, looking around for an enemy, while Hinata was crouched next to her, byakugan active and concern on her face. "Ano… Ino, what's wrong?"

"Mental attack," Ino gasped out. "Stronger than I've ever felt. It's targeting all of us."

That was when Naruto turned to look at her, and she saw his eyes, shining quicksilver orbs that reflected everything in front of him through a warped mirror. Time seemed to slow down for Ino as he moved closer and she took in what she quickly realized wasn't a reflection but a glimpse into another world. The scenery was the same, and at first Ino could see images of herself, Team Eight and the rest of the people nearby, happy and laughing on a bright, sunlit street. While Ino watched, clouds rolled in to obscure the sunny sky in Naruto's eyes, and the faces went from happy to wary and suspicious. The timbre of the mental attack blanketing the area changed, and it wasn't contagious happiness assaulting Ino's mind anymore; now it was fear and suspicion, and the Yamanaka heir watched it wash outward from Naruto like a wave.

Ino could see expressions in the crowd around them darkening, people looking at each other with mistrust, some shinobi even drawing weapons. "It's you," Ino said, her voice shaking with disbelief. Naruto wasn't a target of the psychic onslaught, he was launching it!

"What do you mean, Ino?" Hinata asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

"The attack's coming from Naruto," Ino said more firmly, getting to her feet and advancing on the puzzled jinchuuriki as the crowd around them started dissolving into a mob. A pounding headache was rapidly starting to form between Ino's temples from the effort of keeping her mind safe. "Look at his eyes!"

Team Eight exchanged puzzled glances. "Ino you're not making sense. There's nothing wrong with Naruto's eyes," Kiba said slowly. Shino and Hinata nodded in agreement.

"What's wrong with my eyes?" Naruto demanded at the same time.

_They can't see it, _Ino realized. It wasn't a genjutsu; that wouldn't work on Hinata with her byakugan active. It had to be layered into the emotional projection. Naruto seemed genuinely clueless. _Is it possible he doesn't know what he's doing?_ Digging into her purse Ino slipped out her compact, flipped open the mirror and held it up in front of Naruto. "Look!"

Naruto's shock was plain when he saw his own reflective eyes staring back at him in the mirror. Ino grunted in shock when a wave of panic slammed into her like a gut punch. "Naruto, you have to stop!" Ino said, starting to figure out how… whatever this was… worked. "You're projecting your emotions into everyone around you!" She winced with the onslaught of fear and confusion only increased. Hearing a clang of steel on steel, Ino turned to see a random chuunin swinging a kunai at Kiba while he and Akamaru fought back with claws and teeth. Members of the crowd were starting to turn on anyone near them in blind terror. Hinata and Shino were back to back fending off attacks from the panicking mob.

"Naruto! Relax, calm down," Ino commanded him. He didn't even seem to hear her, staring at the devolving melee around him with dazed dismay. Ino grabbed his face in her hands and yanked his face down inches in front of hers. "Look at me, Naruto," she said slowly and firmly, fighting her own urge to scream from the pain of just keeping herself centered in the face of the invisible maelstrom of fear pouring from the jinchuuriki's mirrored eyes. "Listen only to my voice. Find your center. Calm your mind."

"How?" he demanded. "I- I don't know!"

Ino resisted the urge to swear. _Of course no one's even taught him anything about meditation or emotional control. Why would they? Naruto's always been a brawler who fights on instinct._ There was only one other thing Ino could think of to do, and it was crazy and possibly suicidal, but she was out of time. From the corner of her eye Ino could see Kiba's opponent go down with what looked like a few broken bones, while the Inuzuka was panting and gripping a bleeding slice down his arm, his eyes feral as he looked for his next opponent. Shino and Hinata were close to being overwhelmed or forced to use lethal techniques to protect themselves.

Before her sense of self-preservation kicked in and she talked herself out of it, Ino placed her palm on Naruto's forehead and switched from defense to attack, burrowing deep into Naruto's consciousness with the sharpest blade she could form of her own will. Knowing she had only a fraction of a second to finish her task she struck at the seat of his consciousness, and felt Naruto's mindscape crumble as he passed out.

With her task complete Ino didn't dally, throwing her mind back towards her body. She'd almost made it out when she was brought to a sudden halt, claws of malevolent chakra slicing into her mind and sending pain through every fiber of her being. Malevolent laughter surrounded Ino, and then she had the sensation of falling.

Ino fell until she hit water. It was shallow, only knee-deep, and filthy. Her back hit the brick under the water with bruising force, and she sat up with a gasp before she inhaled any of the rank water she was sitting in. Looking around, Ino discovered she was in a stinking, dimly lit sewer. The walls were covered with pipes, many of which were broken and leaking noxious substances into the water.

"Oh, not good," Ino murmured as she gingerly got to her feet. She tried to yank herself back to her body, but she hit a wall of dark chakra that stopped her cold. "Dad's going to kill me," she predicted. _Assuming I survive this,_ she amended mentally.

When he'd found out that Naruto Uzumaki was in Ino's academy class, Inoichi had made his eight year old daughter swear to him to _never_, under any circumstance, use any of her mental ninjutsu on the boy. She'd never seen her father so serious and worried, so she promised, and she had never gone near Naruto's mind, though she hadn't found out why it was forbidden until it was revealed that he was the container of the Kyuubi. Naruto possessed an 'absolute defense' around his mind that even a Yamanaka should fear, an angry, powerful demon lurking in his subconscious; which, as Ino looked around with distaste, was where she seemed to be.

"Okay, don't lose your cool Ino, you just need to hide until someone finds dad to break you out of here," she reminded herself. The ugly, rumbling laugh that echoed through the sewers in response was not reassuring.

Cautious and alert, Ino waded slowly through the sewer tunnels, eyes and ears alert for any sign that the fox knew where she was. Though she was trapped in the recesses of Naruto's mind she wasn't without some tricks and strategies, but if the fox found her it was game over. She simply didn't have the chakra to fight it, even in a mindscape where the Yamanaka were strongest.

More than once she heard something massive slithering through the tunnels nearby, and hid herself in side tunnels or squeezed her lithe body into narrow pipes until the sounds passed. She was soon covered with filth from head to toe, and even though the dirt was mental, Ino Yamanaka was not a happy camper. _Naruto is SO going to pay for this once I get out of here_, she vowed.

Time was impossible to measure in a mindscape, but Ino began to wonder what was taking so long as she played hide and seek with the Kyuubi. She knew she'd succeeded in knocking Naruto out before she got dragged down here, so the brawl should have ended. Team Eight wasn't Shikamaru and Chouji, but all of her friends knew that if she got stuck in someone's head and didn't wake up to go find her father or another member of her clan.

The more she thought about what she'd observed of Naruto's weird eye technique the angrier she got. _Did he use that power on Sakura last night?_ It made an alarming amount of sense. Ino had been in the minds of enough teenage boys to know that they were always thinking about sex and lusting after anything with breasts. If Naruto had this power to force his own emotional state into the minds of others last night, Sakura would have been defenseless.

_It's not on all the time, though,_ Ino realized, remembering that his eyes had been normal when he woke up, and he hadn't been projecting anything then. _This is Naruto, no way is he doing any of this on purpose, but still, I need to get out of here and warn everyone. I don't think anyone else understands what's happening, and it seems like his power conceals itself from whoever he uses it on._

That was, of course, the moment when the sewer tunnel shook and the wall in front of Ino caved in. A massive, orange tail with a white tip slithered into the tunnel like a furry snake, questing blindly for her. It might have been cute if it wasn't the size of a horse. Turning on her heel Ino sprinted away from the thing as it filled the tunnel behind her. She managed to keep ahead of it, but four turns later Ino skidded to a stop, finding herself in a dead end. She looked around desperately, but there were no grates or pipes big enough to crawl into.

"Come on dad, where are you?" she wondered. Then the tail caught up with her, and Ino shrieked as its narrow, furry tip wrapped tightly around her leg. Snatching a kunai from her pouch she hacked at the long strands of hair, but they resisted her efforts, and she was yanked off her feet. Ino struggled to free herself as she was dragged at high speed through the sewer tunnels, swearing in between being dunked in dirty water.

Ino was soaked and bruised when the punishing trip came to an end and she was hauled into the air, more tails wrapping around her other limbs and pulling them apart spread eagle. Her wrist was squeezed until she dropped her kunai with a hiss of pain, and then she was turned around. Ino's eyes went wide and her breath caught in her throat. _Oh no._

This area of the sewer was better lit and much larger. Ino was facing a massive, golden barred door that filled the tunnel, an intricate seal placed on its lock. The tails holding her captive originated from behind the bars, and as she watched a single, glowing red eye as big as she was opened in the darkness behind the bars and focused on her.

The Kyuubi laughed. **So a little fly of a Yamanaka has wandered into my parlor,**it observed with cruel glee. **It's been so long since I've eaten one of you.**

Anger warred with Ino's fear. The Kyuubi had killed several members of her clan including both of her paternal grandparents before the Fourth Hokage had defeated it. She'd been an infant then, and had never known them. "How did that turn out for you before," Ino shot back, managing a bravado she didn't feel. "Oh right, the Fourth Hokage stuffed you in that cage."

The Kyuubi growled, and the four tails holding her pulled apart, drawing a pained cry from Ino's lips as her shoulders and hips burned from the strain. Enough trauma in a mindscape could be fatal, and Ino stared the Kyuubi in the face, knowing it could tear her apart.

A moment passed, and it didn't kill her. Instead, she saw a sly grin steal across the fox's shadowed muzzle. **Did you enjoy the gift I gave to my jailor?** The Kyuubi asked. **The pink-haired bitch he cares for so much certainly did.**

Ino's eyes narrowed. "The mirrored eyes and the emotional projection; you did that to Naruto? I should have guessed."

The fox laughed. **Your warning fell on deaf ears, mind reader,**the Kyuubi crowed. **My fool of a container knows nothing! Thanks to you he won't remember a thing when he wakes.**

"But I understand what you've done," Ino replied. "I'll tell them how to stop it."

**Poor young fool. You've barely scratched the surface of my curse and you think yourself its master? You understand nothing, girl.**

"We'll still figure it out," Ino insisted. "You won't win."

'**We?' Oh my,** The Kyuubi exclaimed. **You seem so very certain you'll wake up!**The fox tugged on Ino's abused limbs again, just to make her scream. **I won't kill you,** it assured her. **That would be too quick. No, I think I'll just flay your mind until you can't form a coherent thought and then I'll let you go. By the time you pull yourself back together enough to speak my moron of a container will have torn his precious village apart without even realizing what he's done. I suppose I'll tell him the truth once Konoha is ash. His screams will be even sweeter than yours.**

"No…" Ino whispered, horrified. "You can't." She struggled against the tails binding her, heedless of the pain shooting through her abused body.

**Watch me,**the Kyuubi growled, and Ino shivered as the fox's one visible eye glowed brighter and brighter, madness and hate swirling in its depths. **Your pathetic village's destruction has already begun. Your allies cannot hope to stop what they do not even comprehend!**

**Did you know,** the fox observed idly, **that these bars only offer protection to the wearer of my seal?**

"No," Ino pleaded as the tails drew back into the cage, pulling her in closer. When they slid between the bars Ino got a hand around one of the golden rods, holding on desperately until the Kyuubi's grip overpowered her and she vanished into the darkness beyond the bars.

* * *

Rendered unconscious by Ino Yamanaka's mental ninjutsu Naruto Uzumaki slept deeply, unaware of his surroundings. He did not sleep easily, however. He dreamed of a golden cage in a sewer and the darkness sealed within. His dreams were filled with screams and laughter.


	3. Infection – Hinata Hyuuga

**Chapter 3: Infection – Hinata Hyuuga**

* * *

"This day just keeps getting worse," Tsunade Senju growled, walking with Shizune through the halls of the hospital.

Tsunade had spent the last hour at the ANBU-run jail buried underneath the cliff that served as a holding point for shinobi who had been arrested for one reason or another. She had no more answers now than when she'd gone there as to why almost a dozen good shinobi had gotten involved in a brawl with civilians that had left three Konoha citizens dead and dozens hospitalized.

No sooner had Tsunade left Sakura's room than the ANBU she'd placed on alert started bringing in reports of a riot that had formed without warning and torn apart a section of the bustling market district. By the time she arrived, the melee had ended, but the damage was done, Hinata Hyuuga, Shino Aburame, Kiba Inuzuka and several more solid, responsible ninja had fought and injured unarmed civilians and each other.

Perpetrators and witnesses were taken in for interrogation but no one, aggressors or victims, could explain their actions or even why the riot had started, citing only an overwhelming sense of fear and confusion that seemed to have driven more than a hundred people to temporary madness.

She'd left the prison with orders for the Torture and Interrogation division of ANBU to sift through the memories of Team Eight and the others, but she wasn't holding out hope that answers would be forthcoming. From the messages she was receiving, the civilian representatives and merchant guilds were demanding explanations for the riot and the actions of her people that she didn't have yet.

Tsunade had to assume that the village was indeed being attacked somehow, be it drugs, genjutsu or something new. The ANBU and village defenders were all on high alert, and visitors to the village without someone to vouch for them were being detained for questioning.

Entering a hospital room with Shizune, Tsunade took in another problematic and alarming sight. On opposite sides of a dividing screen were two hospital beds. Ino Yamanaka occupied the one closest to the door, and Naruto Uzumaki's unresponsive form lay by the window. When the dust settled from the riot both of them had been found in a condition similar to Sakura's; physically whole but comatose and unresponsive to attempts to wake them.

Even the answers Tsunade had received about Sakura only lead to more questions. The Hyuuga medic had reported quietly to her that the man Sakura had slept with was none other than Naruto, and while that took Tsunade aback on a personal level, it also meant that she had no leads on Sakura's condition. Inoichi had briefly entered Sakura's mind before being called to T&I to scan the riot participants, but the Yamanaka patriarch couldn't identify the foreign chakra in Sakura's brain, and his attempts to delve into her mindscape had ended when he was forced to withdraw. "If I didn't know Sakura was stable and mentally healthy I'd be tempted to call what I'm seeing dissociative personality disorder. Her mind's at war with itself and I can't make any headway until her brain activity calms down."

A member of Tsunade's ANBU detail appeared beside her. "The village council has convened. They're demanding your presence."

"Of course they are," Tsunade sighed. "Time to go let the council yell at me."

"Should I come with you?" Shizune asked.

"Don't bother. Stay here and let me know if Sakura, Naruto or Ino's condition change," Tsunade instructed her apprentice before leaving.

* * *

Sitting on the thin cot jutting from the stone wall in a dimly lit ANBU cell, Hinata Hyuuga hummed quietly to herself. It was a tune she'd never heard before, but it seemed appropriate. Being alone in the quiet room had given her plenty of time for reflection. Hinata wondered if she was supposed to feel worried, or scared, or ashamed of herself. Those were, after all, the default settings that Hinata Hyuuga ran on for most of her waking hours. She had just gone through an interrogation where she was informed that her Gentle Fist had incapacitated more than a dozen people, including one old man whose frail chakra coils had been ruptured by the blow. He probably wouldn't ever walk again.

But it was such a marvelous day that Hinata couldn't bring herself to be depressed. She honestly couldn't remember when she'd ever felt better in her life. Maybe the day she had been promoted to chuunin and her father Hiashi Hyuuga admitted she might not be a complete failure after all? No, Hinata decided, today was better. She'd sat next to Naruto Uzumaki, and talked to him without stuttering. Laughed with him and felt not a trace of self-consciousness. She'd even touched him, and felt something indescribable pass between them when she had done so. All of that and she hadn't even come close to fainting!

"I love Naruto Uzumaki," she declared to the empty room, then raised a hand to touch her cheek. Not a hint of a blush's heat. Hinata laughed in delight. At some point between when Team Eight had run into Naruto on the street and when they sat down to have lunch and catch up, a switch had been flipped in Hinata's head, and the change had been solidified when she'd held his hand in hers. All of her fear, all of her doubts and self-perceived inadequacies were gone, and Hinata felt like she'd been walking on air ever since. There had been those chaotic few minutes after Ino's arrival that she couldn't remember clearly, and of course coming back to herself with blood on her hands had been jarring, but Hinata couldn't let that get her down.

Only one thing was keeping this from being a perfect day, Hinata decided. She was sitting in this cell, and Naruto wasn't here to share this wonderful time with her. "But there's no reason to spend all day here," Hinata reminded herself. "I can just go find my dear Naruto and confess my love to him. There's nothing holding me back any more!"

Hinata looked at the locked door of chakra-resistant metal that even her strongest blows wouldn't dent, and remembered the highly trained ANBU jounin guards who would probably object to her departure. They were certainly obstacles, but Hinata refused to let them stand in her way. After thinking about it for a moment, she had a plan.

Rising to her feet, Hinata paced around the cell for a minute before leaning against the wall and pressing her hand to her head. Finally, she let her eyes drift shut and her body collapse to the floor. In less than a minute she heard footsteps outside the door, and the creak of hinges as it opened. Remaining still, Hinata counted two sets of feet entering the cell. The guards wasted no time cuffing her hands behind her back, and she let them. She waited until they lifted her up, and got her feet under her as her eyes snapped open.

Even with her hands free she couldn't have fought two jounin head on, but in an enclosed space like this she didn't have to. Before either could strike her Hinata spun on her heels, expelling chakra from every tenketsu on her body, and the pair of ANBU had just enough time to look alarmed before a dome of whirling blue chakra erupted around Hinata and threw them away from her, slamming them into the walls of the cell and pinning them there, grinding away with vicious force. Hinata continued the Eight Trigrams Palm Rotation – which despite its name did not require the palms being unrestrained – until she was certain the guards were comatose before stopping the spin. Glancing up at the cell's camera, she confirmed that the spin had destroyed it, which she decided might buy her some more time.

Hinata wasted no time retrieving the guard's keys and freeing her hands before using the Transformation Jutsu to take on the appearance of one of the luckless pair. That done, she slipped out of the cell and locked the pair of injured ANBU inside. Then she activated her byakugan and headed for the exit, dodging the remaining ANBU patrols with ease, humming her cheerful tune. "Nothing will keep me away from my Naruto now," she said happily.

* * *

Once the council chamber was empty the Hokage sat in her oversized chair at the head of the chamber, gathering her strength before rising to her feet. She understood that the villagers viewed the office of the Hokage with an almost superstitious awe, but that sure went away fast when they were upset and afraid. Tsunade wasn't sure how many different ways she could diplomatically convey that a) she didn't know exactly what was going on, b) her best people were looking into it, and c) yes, she was doing everything she could to protect the village.

Tsunade was most of the way back to her office in the Hokage's tower when the next crisis presented itself in the form of Kakashi Hatake loitering in the hallway and reading his orange book of soft core porn. When he noticed her he looked up, his expression grave.

"No." Tsunade said firmly, pointing a finger at the Copy Ninja. "You are not allowed to give me any more bad news today."

Blinking, Kakashi considered that and then gave her an eye-smile. "Kiba and Shino are still in their cells."

Tsunade glared at him. "And?"

"Hinata Hyuuga isn't in hers," he admitted blandly.

Tsunade felt a chill run through her. "Did she collapse too?" she demanded, dreading the answer. Hiashi would climb the walls if Hinata was afflicted as well.

"She escaped from custody half an hour ago and sent four ANBU to the ICU in the process," Kakashi informed her with a false cheer that hid real anger.

Tsunade couldn't help her jaw dropping at that. "Hinata Hyuuga, the most timid chuunin on active duty, a girl who _faints_ around the boy she likes, managed to overcome four veteran jounin? Is that what you're telling me Kakashi?"

Kakashi shrugged. "She's a little less timid all of a sudden, but yes. That spinning technique her cousin is so fond of does a lot of damage in an enclosed space hemmed in by rock walls. My men look like they went through a meat grinder. She took the cell guards and the ANBU at the gate by surprise. I have the surveillance footage, if you'd like to see it," he offered, holding up a disc.

Tsunade sighed and nodded, entering her office. "Get in here."

The camera from Hinata's cell didn't reveal much except her faked collapse, but the one at the prison gate had survived, and the footage was brutal. When the recording ended, Tsunade was silent. "I may have to promote her to jounin, if I don't wind up wringing her neck first." She glanced at Kakashi. "I know you've already put out a capture with prejudice alert on her." Kakashi nodded. "Good. Just… don't kill her. I don't need that kind of shit from Hiashi."

Tsunade sat back with a sigh. "Declare a curfew tonight. Turn out the ANBU and active jounin; I want Hinata found before sunrise. See if you can find whoever's driving good people insane while you're at it. Hell, you might find one when you find the other, because that sure wasn't the Hinata I know, and that two incidents today she's involved in." That reminded Tsunade of something else. "Double the guard on Kiba and Shino, too."

"Already done," Kakashi admitted.

"See, this is why I made you the ANBU commander."

"Don't remind me," Kakashi said sourly.

Leaning forward Tsunade rewound the prison recording a bit, pausing on the moment when Hinata dropped her transformation prior to starting her spin. In the frozen frame she was facing the camera. "The picture quality on these cameras isn't great, but do her eyes look different to you?"

Kakashi squinted at the grainy image. "I guess. Hyuuga eyes are all strange, but hers do look darker than I remember." He advanced the recording a few frames until the sunlight from outside was on her eyes. "There. Her irises are too reflective; almost metallic."

* * *

Barefoot and wearing a long, flowing red dress with thin shoulder straps, Sakura Haruno walked through a familiar forest. It reminded her of the woods surrounding Konoha, but lighter, more dream-like. Soft grass whispered under her feet as she walked, and golden sunlight filtered down through the trees to caress her skin with gentle warmth. Time seemed to have little meaning in the endless forest, and Sakura wasn't sure how long she'd walked before she heart quiet sobbing coming from behind a cherry blossom tree, its branches heavy with pink flowers.

Stepping around the tree, Sakura discovered a tiny girl with a round, cherubic face, a broad forehead, and the same jade eyes and bubblegum hair as her own. Seeing her younger self seemed only natural in this place, and Sakura crouched down, giving her child-self a big smile. "What's wrong, sweetie?"

"All the other girls at school won't play with me. They say I'm a billboard brow freak," the little girl cried.

Sakura gently wiped a tear from the girl's face. "They're jealous, sweetie. You stand out just be being who you are; they're the ones who have to be mean or catty or act out to be noticed."

"R-really?" the little girl asked dubiously.

"Really!" Sakura said with a grin. "Plus, in ten years you'll look like me, and all of those perfectly proportioned brunettes will just be perfectly plain."

"That's awesome!" little Sakura declared, clambering to her feet and pumping her first. "Thanks, big me!" Sakura watched as the little girl darted off into the forest.

It wasn't until her younger self was far away that Sakura noticed the golden light fading, the forest growing dark around them. Concerned, Sakura took a few steps to follow her younger self, but the ground shook beneath her feet, and rods of black iron shot from the ground in a circle around her, meeting at the top and forming a domed cage around her. Eyes narrowing, Sakura gripped the metal bars and applied her strength. She should have been able to shatter metal of this thickness with her bare hands, but her strength seemed to have abandoned her. Outside, the forest faded away, until all that was left was the cage of wrought iron.

Looking around her prison, Sakura realized with a jolt of recognition that this was the cage she'd kept her pet songbird in when she was little. As though that recognition had triggered it the darkness outside the cage changed to her childhood bedroom. Once again she was faced with her younger self, but this time she was tiny, the size of that long-gone songbird, and her younger self was immense, peering into the cage at her. "What is this?" Sakura demanded.

"This is a relationship being restructured, Sakura." Her younger self's lips moved, but it was her own voice that emerged, rich with scorn.

Sakura blinked in surprise. "Inner?"

A nasty grin that had no place on the lips of her younger self crossed the face of the titanic child. "Finally figured it out?" Inner taunted her. "Too bad for you it's too late."

"This is impossible. You can't do this! You've never had the power to do more than speak." Even in her earliest memories Inner had never been able to take over, and her voice had faded over the years. Doing this, trapping her even in a dream, was outside of Inner Sakura's ability. Or so she'd thought.

There was a manic light in Inner's eyes as she looked down at her tiny other half in the songbird's cage. "We've gained more than you could imagine, Sakura. Naruto has given us a gift, and I'm going to use it. I'm going to take the second chance you're too scared to grasp, Sakura. I'm going to make him ours. You can just sit there, sing a pretty song for me, and watch."

Sakura's face paled in horror as she understood Inner's meaning. "You're insane," she said weakly. There was no way Inner could switch places with her, live in her body and reduce Sakura to nothing more than a voice echoing through the back of her own mind. That was impossible. Wasn't it?

"Whatever you need to tell yourself, Sakura," Inner said lightly. "I'll leave the window ajar so you can watch." Inner strolled over to the room's window and opened it. Without a care she hopped out of the window. Sakura watched as the view out the window went dark, and then lightened slightly to display the unlit ceiling of a Konoha hospital recovery room.

"This is not happening," Sakura said as firmly as she could manage. "It's my body and my life. I have to stop this." Looking around the birdcage though, she wasn't immediately sure how.

* * *

In Sakura's hospital room, she stirred in bed and her eyelids snapped open abruptly. If there had been any witnesses they would have noticed that her jade eyes looked like someone had sprinkled silver dust over her irises, giving them a refractive glint.

A slow grin spread across Sakura's face. "Time to get to work," she said with quiet glee. Slipping out of bed she shed the flimsy hospital gown for the clean clothes that someone had thoughtfully brought by. Pausing to run her fingers over a fading hickey on her neck, she shivered at the memory of the previous night. The sensations had been intense enough secondhand that Inner couldn't wait to find out how it would feel to be in the driver's seat.

Slipping out of her room silently, Sakura made her way carefully through the hospital's halls, avoiding the shinobi guards and occasional nurse on rotation, checking an unguarded patient chart and then making a beeline for the room assigned to Naruto Uzumaki. She couldn't help licking her lips as she approached the door.

* * *

In the dead of night, the hospital was quiet, the patient rooms were dark and still. In one of those rooms, Hinata Hyuuga lay on a hospital bed, curled up next to the bed's intended occupant.

Hinata hummed her new favorite tune quietly, her pale eyes – shimmering, refractive motes in her irises now visible when the light hit them – never leaving Naruto Uzumaki's sleeping face. One of her hands was draped over him, and her fingers absently traced a familiar pattern over and over on his chest: a circle, with a spiral starting at one edge and rotating in towards the center. It was the symbol on the back of every chuunin and jounin vest in Konoha. Hinata had never given it much thought before, but now her deft fingers traced the symbol whenever they were idle.

It had taken Hinata a little while to locate Naruto, especially since she had been forced to avoid a number of ANBU patrols. Anyone without a byakugan probably wouldn't have made it, but Hinata had persevered. She'd visited Naruto's apartment first, but he hadn't been there. She'd given in to temptation and sprawled on his bed for a few minutes, just inhaling his scent from the covers, before moving on.

Vaguely remembering seeing Naruto unconscious after the riot, the hospital had been her next stop and there she found him, although the heightened security meant it had taken her hours to sneak into his room. She had reached him, and nothing would separate them. In the dark, Hinata listened to Naruto breathe and waited for him to wake, idly tracing spirals on his chest and humming a nameless tune. "Soon we'll be together," Hinata murmured. "Then we'll have all the time in the world." Everything was coming together. Soon all the pieces would be in place. Hinata frowned for a moment, trying to identify how she knew that or what it meant, but she shrugged it off. It didn't matter.

Hinata's pleasant musings were interrupted when she heard footsteps in the hallway outside. Quick and graceful as a cat she left Naruto's side and darted past Ino Yamanaka's bed on silent feet. Reaching the door, she pressed her back to the wall next to it, not even breathing as she listened. Outside the footsteps stopped outside the door, Hinata's eyes narrowed, and she formed one hand into a knife fist, pale blue chakra glowing softly around her fingers. The knob turned, the door opened, and Hinata struck before the target even came into sight, aiming for the spot where the neck of the person about to enter would be.

* * *

Naruto Uzumaki woke up with a groan of irritation. He had a splitting headache, he was surrounded by a familiar stench, and he was soaked with filthy water from the waist down as he sat propped against the wall of a dimly lit sewer. "How did I wind up in here?" Naruto wondered to himself, "and why does my head feel like it's been used as a punching bag?"

No answers were forthcoming, so Naruto sighed and headed for the point of maximum malevolence inside this twisted little sector of his mind, knowing that he'd find the Kyuubi – and maybe some answers – wherever the oppressive chakra was the heaviest. Since he knew that secret of the sewer maze, Naruto found the section with the Kyuubi's cage in short order. When he emerged into the chamber the Kyuubi's baleful eye focused on him, and the fox bared its teeth at him. **Hello kit,** the bijuu growled. **I'm honored that you've decided to grace us with your presence. I was getting bored.**

_Us?_ Naruto was about to ask what the Kyuubi meant when he heard something else in the darkness beyond the cell's bars; ragged breathing broken by an occasional pained whimper. Stepping closer to the cage, Naruto was alarmed to see what looked like blood staining the water, and glimpsed pale skin and purple fabric before the Kyuubi shifted to hide its prize from view.

"What's in there with you, Kyuubi?" Naruto demanded, remembering his unsettling dreams.

**You should be proud of me, kit,**the fox replied innocently. **I made a new friend while you were sleeping! **One of its tails picked up the shadowed form lying in the sewer water and moved it forward into the light just behind the bars. Naruto stared in horror, headache forgotten. The Kyuubi's tail was wrapped around Ino Yamanaka's wrists, and she dangled unresisting in its grip, her head slumped forward. Her green eyes were open, but glassy and dull. Her body was covered with her own blood and her hair, free of its ponytail and strewn around her, was streaked with red. Where Ino wasn't cut and bleeding she was burned or covered with filth. Naruto could see she was still breathing, but she looked like someone on death's door.

"Ino! What have you done, Kyuubi?" Naruto yelled, rage sparking in his blue eyes.

**She invited herself in,** the Kyuubi said, its glee evident at Naruto's reaction. **You were otherwise occupied, so I decided to be a good host and… entertain her.**

Naruto's mind reeled. Why would Ino do that? Dismissing it as irrelevant Naruto swiftly moved to the base of the seal on the door and formed some hand signs Jiraiya had taught him before slamming his palms into the door. On the other side of the bars more than a dozen massive redwood prayer gates slammed down onto the Kyuubi, pinning its body and thrashing tails. Satisfied that it was restrained, Naruto ran between the bars, wrestled Ino from the grip of the Kyuubi's tail and carried her safely out of the cage.

The Kyuubi broke free of the prayer gates in less than a minute and they crumbled around him. The fox glared balefully at Naruto, but in his arms Ino was safe, so it just huffed disdainfully. **You can have her back,** it said. **That chew toy stopped being fun hours ago. The screams were entertaining, but past a certain threshold of pain the mind starts shutting down, and a toy that just lies still and whimpers isn't nearly as enjoyable.**

Naruto shook with anger. "You'll pay for this, Kyuubi," Naruto threatened.

The giant fox bared its teeth in amusement. **What are you going to do, kit? Stick me in a cage?** The Kyuubi laughed.

Putting the demon out of his mind with some effort, Naruto examined Ino. He wasn't entirely sure how to get someone out of his head if they couldn't do it themselves, and he wasn't an expert on Ino's clan ninjutsu. After a minute Naruto remembered one of Jiraiya's fuuinjutsu lessons, and inspiration struck; Ino's mental projections were chakra-based, so maybe she'd go back to her body on her own if he disrupted the chakra of her jutsu now that the Kyuubi wasn't trapping her anymore. Hesitantly, Naruto traced a simple chakra suppression seal on her forehead with one finger, grimacing as he made the pattern in the half-dried blood coating her face. When he finished the design and pushed a bit of his own chakra into it, Ino's form wavered and vanished.

"I really hope that worked," Naruto muttered. He wished he could have talked to Jiraiya or Ino's dad first, but that would have required leaving her alone with the fox again. Satisfied that she was at least no longer in his mind, he gave the smug-looking Kyuubi a baleful look. "I will find a way to make you pay for that," he repeated, icy calm now.

**I'm shaking in my little fur booties,**the Kyuubi replied with a bored yawn. **It's been fun and all, but I like to take a nap after some light maiming, and you should probably go make sure you didn't just destroy that tasty little blonde's mind instead of sending it home.** The fox rested its head on its paws, and let its eyes drift shut.

Naruto conceded the point and merely glared at the fox again before closing his eyes and shunting himself out of the sewer prison that was his subconscious.

* * *

The Kyuubi chuckled once Naruto was gone. **You don't have a clue what's waiting for you, boy. **The demon fox's ability to sense what went on outside of its host's body was severely limited by its prison, but thanks to Naruto's occasional use of its chakra the bijuu could slip feelers out between tiny cracks in its cage; nothing that would let it escape, alas, but enough to detect certain things pertaining to its host. The Kyuubi grinned, sensing that its container's inadvertent use of the power it had been recently gifted with was bearing fruit. **You'll get a taste of heaven, kit, before you truly experience hell.**


	4. Carrier – Naruto Uzumaki

**Chapter 4: Carrier – Naruto Uzumaki**

* * *

_Author's Note: Sorry this update took a little while. I got most of the way writing this chapter, realized it was terrible, and went in a different direction. Enjoy! (I hope.)_

* * *

When Naruto Uzumaki drifted back to wakefulness after his disturbing confrontation with the Kyuubi, he was lying in an unfamiliar bed in a room he hadn't seen before. It was far more tastefully decorated than his apartment, if rather soulless. It was almost like a nice hotel room, but clearly part of a full apartment. It screamed of having been decorated by a consultant for someone with plenty of cash.

After the room's décor, the second thing Naruto noticed was that he wasn't alone. Hinata Hyuuga sat at the room's vanity, her back to him as she brushed her long, dark hair and quietly hummed a tune he'd never heard before. Cautiously, Naruto sat up on the edge of the bed, wondering what was going on.

When Hinata saw him move in the mirror she set the brush down and stood up, turning to face him. Naruto blinked when he realized she was wearing a sheer robe of cream-colored silk that came down to mid-thigh and opened in a deep 'v' in the front, baring the inner slopes of her breasts. He'd never seen Hinata wear something so revealing, but she seemed comfortable in it, smiling warmly.

Hinata's lilac eyes were dusted with silvery motes that glittered in the room's soft light, provided by a few lamps. Even as Naruto noticed the change in her eyes, the thought that it was unusual slipped away without gaining traction.

"Ahh… where are we?" Naruto inquired, trying to figure out what was going on here, because it felt like a set-up to a scene in one of Jiraiya's books, except those perverted fantasies never happened in real life.

"This is one of the properties my clan keeps for members who want to get away from the family for a bit. You can guess why, when everyone has eyes that can see through walls." Hinata replied easily.

Naruto coughed nervously. _No way was that innuendo. This is Hinata we're talking about._ "How did I get here?" Naruto changed the subject.

"I brought you here after that mess in the market district."

"Why?"

Hinata moved closer to him, until she stood over him with their knees almost touching. "Because I have to tell you something," she said, "and I wanted to do it here. I love you, Naruto. I've loved you since we were in the Academy. When I was younger I was too shy and afraid to say anything. I missed you so much when you were gone; I was a fool to let you leave like that. I was so happy when you came back. I'm not afraid to say it anymore, Naruto; I want to be yours."

Naruto's jaw was hanging open by the end of her confession. He found himself remembering that Hinata had never been mean to him as a child, no matter what adults told her. He remembered all the blushing smiles, all the times he'd spotted Hinata spying on him from behind a tree, all the times that she'd stammered and faltered when they spoke, and it all made sense.

"You love me?" Naruto asked, his voice full of quiet wonder. Naruto knew that there were people who cared for him, his precious people. Iruka, the Third Hokage, Kakashi, Sakura, his friends among the Rookie Eleven, Jiraiya and Tsunade… but of all those people, none had ever said 'I love you', and realizing that Hinata had loved him even before he was a hero, when everyone thought he was a failure, was a heady feeling.

Thinking back, Naruto was startled to realize that he cared about her, too. He'd been obsessed with Sakura for a long time, but he'd always felt like Hinata was one of the nicest people he knew, though it had taken her duel with Neji during the Chuunin Exam to reinforce how important she was to him.

"Wow. Hinata, I… I don't know what to say."

"Say that you'll give me a chance," she said. "Now that I've said what I wanted to say, let me have the opportunity to become as important to you as you are to me."

"Hinata, you've been important to me for a long time," Naruto replied honestly. "I should have realized sooner that you wanted more."

"How could you?" Hinata asked with a hint of self-deprecation. "I never made it known. I didn't have the courage until you came back and I saw you again."

"Don't," Naruto said firmly, taking her hand in his. "I like who you are, even when you're shy."

Hinata smiled radiantly. "Thank you, Naruto. But I think I'm done being shy." Hinata leaned down slowly and kissed him. A dozen different things ran through Naruto's mind, but the thing that stood out was that Hinata tasted like cinnamon. Sakura's lips had a fruity flavor, like cherries, but Hinata was spice and sweetness.

Hinata climbed onto the bed, straddling Naruto's legs. In spite of himself, Naruto couldn't help but let his eyes drift south, drinking in the feast of Hinata's magnificent bosom close to his face, her breasts straining against the sheer silk that covered them. "Ahh… Hinata?"

"I want you, Naruto," she said, the promise in her voice making his stomach tighten pleasantly. "Do you…?"

"God yes," he answered before kissing her deeply, passionately. For a guilty moment he thought of Sakura, but he reminded himself that there hadn't been any promises between them, no talk of that night being anything more than it was. Sakura certainly hadn't confessed her love.

Then Hinata loosed the waist sash of her cream silk robe and let it slide off of her shoulders to pool on the floor and Naruto promptly forgot about his pink-haired teammate, because Hinata didn't have anything on under the robe.

Naruto decided he had never seen such a magnificent pair of breasts in years of peeping with Jiraiya, and certainly he had never been as closely acquainted with any of those. "I'm so happy," Hinata said. "I've dreamed of this, of you being my first."

Naruto hesitated. "Your first? Hinata, are you sure?"

Taking his hands in hers, she laid them on her breasts. "I've never been more sure of anything," she said firmly. "I want this. Please, Naruto."

Naruto grinned, cupping her breasts and luxuriating in their feel, flicking his thumbs over her nipples, making her quiver. "Of course, Hinata." He kissed her again, and her fingers got to work divesting him of his clothes.

* * *

Hideki Kobashi, twenty-four years old and a special jounin of Iwa, the Village Hidden in the Rocks, was woken from a light sleep by a knock on his door. Instantly alert with the ease of long practice despite being awakened in the dead of night, he sat up from his cot and had his hand around the kunai under his pillow in less than a second. "What is it?" he inquired.

"There's a Leaf ninja outside the cliff entrance, sir," replied the voice of Monoba Idata, one of the five chuunin under Hideki's command.

Hideki frowned, rising smoothly to his feet and crossing the small room to open the door. "Why didn't you and Kasami kill him and be done with it?" Kasami Rinne was the kunoichi who was scheduled to share lookout with Monoba.

Monoba was a short man with greasy black hair captured under the bandana of his forehead protector, and a pockmarked face with dark eyes wearing the standard brown and red chuunin uniform of Iwa's ninja. He looked at Hideki apologetically. "The Leaf ninja's not armed or trying to hide, and they brought… you should really just see it, sir."

Hideki sighed, running his fingers through his close-cropped, spiky brown hair. He was a full foot taller than Monoba, and knew that women considered him handsome even if he thought of himself as rather plain-looking. Kunoichi often chased after him when he took a new post until they figured out he wasn't interested. Hideki had no immediate plans to marry, but it wouldn't be to another ninja. Once he had enough money he'd retire from active duty, find a nice civilian girl, have kids and never pick up a kunai again.

But today he was in charge of a six-man cell of Iwa ninja manning a spying outpost deep in Konoha's territory and his lookout said there was a Konoha ninja outside the hidden entrance to their small base, so he'd worry about surviving today for now. Buried in a cliff side that overlooked two major roads, the base was perfectly situated to spy on commerce and troop movements in the northern part of the Land of Fire.

Following Monoba through the tight, dimly lit halls of their hidden post, carved from solid rock with earth ninjutsu, Hideki made his way up to the tunnel that lead to the surface, opening into a cave concealed by dense, thorny shrubs. Leaning against the wall was Kasami, a petite young woman with long black hair in a ponytail and emerald green eyes wearing the Iwa chuunin uniform with her forehead protector tied to her arm. She was flipping a shuriken between her fingers nervously and glancing at the cave entrance frequently.

Peering through the gaps in the bushes, Hideki could see their unwelcome guest waiting patiently thirty yards down the hill, and what he was surprised him enough that he changed his mind about reprimanding Monoba and Kasami for bothering him.

First, the white ceramic mask and hooded white duster concealed enough of the Leaf ninja standing calmly outside that Hideki could tell it was a woman of medium height and not much more. The uniform was of Konoha's ANBU, so if it came down to a fight it would take all three of them to kill her.

Far stranger was that the Leaf ANBU was not alone. Lying on the ground at her feet, unconscious, gagged and with wrists and ankles tightly bound with chakra rope, was another Konoha kunoichi with her forehead protector nestled in her bubblegum pink hair, wearing a red vest, a pink skirt over dark capris and knee-length sandal-boots.

"What the hell?" Hideki commented at last.

"That's what I said," Kasami murmured.

"Okay, you two watch my back; assume she's stronger than I am. If it comes to a fight we'll have to work together, but let's see what she wants first." Kasami and Monoba nodded seriously. Forming a set of hand seals, Hideki let his chakra flow into the ground, using it to shift the giant thorn bushes apart enough for them to pass through. Hideki moved forward while Kasami and Monoba shifted to the flanks of the Konoha ninja.

"You're a bit afield for a midnight stroll," Hideki commented. "Can we help you with something?"

The Leaf ANBU laughed, and Hideki was surprised by how young she sounded. "I'm here to help you, actually." He noted her accent; refined, aristocratic. Possibly even a noble's daughter turned ninja.

"What makes you think I need your help?" Hideki asked easily, even as his mind raced. If one Leaf ninja had found their base he had to assume the rest knew about it; he'd have to pull out and get his people across the border into Iwa's territory tonight. That just left the question of what this one was doing here.

"Well, as of two days ago Konoha knows about your little spider hole here. Later today a number of my colleagues will be arriving to raid it, so you'll probably want to be gone by then," the Leaf kunoichi offered. Kasami and Monoba had flanked her, but she didn't seem concerned, and that worried Hideki, because it meant she was either foolish or very skilled, and fools didn't earn ANBU masks.

"Okay. So why are you here?"

"I brought you a present," she answered. "I imagine losing this spying post and returning home empty-handed would look pretty bad for you, so here's something that will probably get you rewarded instead." The Leaf ANBU nudged her unconscious prisoner with the toe of her boot, rolling the pink-haired woman onto her back. "This is Sakura Haruno. She's the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade Senju. She's got a head full of classified information your village would probably be interested in, and she knows more about medical ninjutsu than anyone in the Elemental Nations excepting Tsunade herself."

One glance told Hideki that Monoba and Kasami looked as stunned as he felt, though he didn't show anything on his face. "Why give her to us? Why not just kill her if you want her out of the way?"

The Konoha ninja shrugged. "I see no reason to tell you. The why doesn't matter. Take her, slit her throat or just leave her here; I don't care. If you do decide to take her, be careful when she wakes up; she possesses her teacher's strength technique. She can fell a tree with a punch if you let her."

A birdcall came from the trees above Hideki and he resisted a confident smile. His second-in-command was in position along with the other chuunin; the odds were much better now. "So, what if I decide to take two Konoha ninja home?"

The Leaf ANBU laughed. "That would be difficult to accomplish. I'm not really here." Hideki's eyes narrowed and he threw a kunai at her with the flick of a wrist. The cloaked figure didn't even try to dodge. The kunai hit – and passed right through as she dissolved into a puff of smoke.

"Leaf ninja and their damned shadow clones," Hideki muttered.

"What's the plan, boss?" Monoba asked, while Kasami cautiously approached Sakura, making sure she was really out cold.

Hideki sighed. "We follow the nice Leaf ANBU's suggestion. This location is compromised. We have fifteen minutes to gather up what we can from the base and then we're going to collapse it and go home."

"What about pinky here?" Kasami inquired as the other three members of the cell emerged from the trees.

Hideki shrugged. "We take her with us."

"What if it's a trap? What if they want us to take her?" Monoba protested.

Hideki didn't answer right away, instead fishing out his copy of the Iwa Bingo Book, flipping to the back where the newest entries were listed. Finding the page he was looking for, he scanned it and then tossed the book to Monoba.

"She is who our guest said she was. Hokages don't throw away their apprentices to set a trap; they're too soft-hearted for that. This smells more like an internal disagreement in Konoha to me. We're just the bag men, and if that gets us a kunoichi who can be coerced to train our medical ninja I'm not complaining." Hideki tapped his left cheek, feeling the bottom end of a thin, raised vertical scar that skipped over his eye socket and rose to halfway up his forehead; he'd been lucky not to lose the eye. He'd taken the wound as a genin, and Iwa's doctors hadn't been able to prevent it from scarring. Konoha's medics were universally regarded as the best in the Elemental Nations.

"Time's wasting," Hideki continued. "Get your gear and set explosive tags at the collapse points. Go!" Hideki slung Sakura over his shoulder and followed his team inside. It took him only a minute to grab his travel backpack from his room; he never unpacked in hostile territory. Carrying Sakura down to the supply room, he passed members of his team affixing explosive tags to walls at junctions were the ceiling was weak.

In the supply room, Hideki bug through the crates and cabinets until he found what he was looking for, and took a case of syringes full of a blue liquid. Removing one before stowing the rest of them in his backpack, Hideki checked Sakura's pulse and then slid the needle into her arm, injecting her with the powerful tranquilizer. "Sorry, but if you're as strong as the Slug Princess I'm not letting you wake up until we've got you safely back to Iwa," he told the unconscious girl.

Hideki hesitated before picking Sakura up, looking at her more closely. Even sleeping she was a pretty young thing, and he could imagine her face would light up when she smiled. Not that she would have cause to be doing much smiling in the near future. Hideki felt guilty for a moment, knowing that he was likely consigning her to an unpleasant fate. For a moment he was tempted to let her go, but the damned Leaf ANBU was right. If they went home empty-handed and with a spy post lost his whole team would be in trouble, and his first job was to look out for them.

Hideki spent the next few minutes searching her, confirming she was unarmed. Then he hefted the pink-haired kunoichi over his shoulder again and headed outside. The rest of his team emerged shortly thereafter, travel packs on their backs. Once they'd moved back to a safe distance, Hideki gave the order to his chuunin. "Bring it down." He felt five spikes of chakra, and then the ground shook with a muffled 'BOOM'. They watched as the entire cliff face collapsed into the forest below. "Okay people, let's move," he commanded, and the six Iwa ninja darted off to the north, with a single prisoner in tow.

* * *

In the early morning hours Hinata Hyuuga lay awake, just listening to Naruto breathe as he slept, enjoying the warmth of his body pressed against hers. She'd known she wanted to give herself to him, but even in her fondest dreams she never imagined it could feel so good. Without a frame of reference she wasn't sure if sex was always that amazing or if it was just him, but all night she'd felt… like they were in sync. It was beyond words, and it reaffirmed her decision to do whatever it took to have Naruto, forever.

An hour before dawn, Hinata slipped out of bed, quietly dressing herself in her ninja garb. She didn't want to leave Naruto for a second, but she knew she had to deal with the fallout of the previous day. She wasn't worried about the ANBU finding her, but if she didn't go home soon her clan would start looking for her, and they would locate her in short order. Hinata paused to pen a quick note to Naruto, leaving it on his bedside table before slipping out the window and taking to the rooftops and alleys, heading for home.

Hinata was halfway home when the memories of her dissipated shadow clone hit her. She shuddered, reminded of how far she had already gone to make sure Naruto would be hers and hers alone. "I'm sorry, Sakura, but I love Naruto, and I _will_ make him mine. No one will stand in my way," she murmured to herself half-apologetically. "He's always chased after you, and I just can't risk you interfering in the beautiful future we'll have together."

Hinata had been surprised to discover after felling the intruder in Naruto's hospital room that it had been Sakura, and angered to realize that she could smell him on Sakura's clothes. She'd been tempted to simply kill Sakura, but had come up with a more elegant plan; hand her over to the spying Iwa ninja Team Eight had located on their last mission before returning to Konoha and meeting Naruto. Sakura would simply disappear, and Hinata wouldn't have the pinkette's death on her conscience.

Hinata slipped into the Hyuuga compound without notice, and entered her father Hiashi's chambers as quietly as a ghost. He was in the midst of his morning meditations when she found him, sitting cross-legged on a thin mat in a dimly lit room filled with the scent of incense. Despite entering silently, Hiashi's head came up as soon as she stepped into the room, his pale eyes boring into her. "You've had an eventful day, daughter," her father observed evenly. "Assaulting civilians and escaping from ANBU lock-up. Give me a reason not to hand you over to the Hokage."

Hinata sank to her knees before him, bowing slightly to her father. "There's no reason you should, father," she replied easily, looking him in the eyes without a hint of uncertainty. "The ANBU had no right to hold me. I simply rectified the situation."

Hiashi was silent for a long moment. "Dare I hope my eldest daughter has finally started to think and act like a Hyuuga, rather than a simpering, scared child?" Hinata didn't react, and saw the surprise on her father's face. She supposed he expected her to look away, or turn red, or stammer a denial. "I see," Hiashi said at last. "I will admit to being pleasantly surprised to learn that you defeated four ANBU on your own. I didn't believe you had it in you."

"If it pleases you father, I will strive to continue surprising you," Hinata answered easily.

Hiashi looked amused for a moment. "Leaving aside the matter of the ANBU, daughter, assaulting civilians in broad daylight is poor form, even if they are beneath us."

"That's not what happened," Hinata said easily. "We came under some form of mental attack. Neither myself nor my teammates have ever suffered from memory loss during battle, and the civilians lost control first and attacked _us_; I do remember that much. The Hokage's knee-jerk reaction to the aftermath was meant to appease the civilians on the council, and I understand that she needed to do it, but I wasn't prepared to spend days in a cell while she hesitated, so I saw myself out." Hinata knew that her father disdained the civilians on the village council and the Hokage's rule by consensus, so it was an explanation that would satisfy him, and she saw the brief smile on his face before it returned to his usual impassive expression.

"I suppose then, that you're here to ask me to deal with the arrest order the Hokage's put out on you?"

"If it's not too much trouble, father, I'd be grateful. I can't keep avoiding ANBU forever," she admitted.

Hiashi rose to his feet. "I'll see what I can do. Stay here in the compound for now; you'll be safe from the Hokage's dogs." He headed for the door, but paused in the threshold. "I would be disappointed if this new confidence was just a phase, Hinata," he warned Hinata.

"I won't disappoint you, father," she said firmly.

"For the first time in my life, I suspect that may be true," Hiashi murmured before departing.

* * *

Naruto woke when the morning sun from the open window fell across his face, yawning and sitting up in the spacious bed of the Hyuuga 'getaway' apartment. A lazy, satisfied smile crossed Naruto's face as he remembered the previous night. Hinata may have been inexperienced, but she was also eager, responsive, and even playful. Naruto was beginning to understand why Jiraiya and so many other men he'd known chased kunoichi. Not only were most of them beautiful, but their stamina was at a level civilian women just couldn't compete with.

Glancing to the side Naruto noted that Hinata had departed, and couldn't help a sigh. He'd hoped he'd see her when he woke. When he got out of bed, though, he spotted a folded note on his bedside table and picked it up.

_Naruto-_

_ Thank you. Last night was amazing. I'm sorry I couldn't be here in the morning, but there's some family business I have to take care of. I hope to see you soon._

_Love,_

_Hinata_

_P.S. Help yourself to the miso ramen in the kitchen. Is that still your favorite?_

Naruto grinned, gloom forgotten. Tracking down his pants, he pulled them on before heading into the kitchen. There were several cups of instant ramen sitting next to a full kettle on the stove. "I could get used to this," Naruto commented with a grin as he fired up the burner to boil the water and peeled back the lids of the ramen cups, sniffing the spices. "This is the good stuff, too! I think I'm in love." Humming happily to himself, Naruto waited for the water to boil.

* * *

"You have got to be joking." Tsunade Senju, sitting behind her desk in the Hokage's office, looked at Hiashi Hyuuga in frank disbelief. She'd gotten back from lunch to find the Hyuuga patriarch waiting for her, and he barely got past 'hello' before dropping a bombshell on her desk.

"I'm quite serious," Hiashi replied smoothly. "So I expect that the arrest order on my daughter will be lifted?"

"No it will not," Tsunade replied between clenched teeth. "Hinata attacked civilians, and broke out of prison before the investigation could be concluded. I have four ANBU in the hospital. I don't know what's gotten into Hinata, but she's not above the law, even if she is your heir."

"In regards to this alleged 'attack' on civilians, members of my clan did the investigation that your people apparently did not. They found multiple eyewitnesses who were more than happy to testify before the village magistrate that – whatever may have caused it – the civilians attacked my daughter and her team, who were forced to defend themselves. Obviously it was some form mental ninjutsu we haven't previously encountered, but you had no cause to arrest my heir, certainly not without consulting me first." That said, Hiashi leaned forward and dropped a stack of papers on Tsunade's desk.

Feeling a twitch coming on in her left eye at someone putting _more_ paperwork on her desk, Tsunade sighed and picked up the papers, leafing through them. To her disgust, every form was a sworn statement from a witness to the market riot stating that the ninja involved were defending themselves. "I recognize some of these names," Tsunade protested. "These people had no memory of the events surrounding the riot."

"I suppose their memories came back to them once they had time to reflect," Hiashi replied smoothly. "Feel free to talk to them again, I'm sure their stories will be quite clear."

_I'm sure Hyuuga money and intimidation bought those stories,_ Tsunade thought sourly. She wasn't a fool; she recognized damage control when she saw it, but she couldn't accuse the head of the village's largest clan of fabricating evidence, and unless she handed these false witnesses over to Ibiki Morino – which she had no cause to do – she didn't doubt that they'd parrot the story Hiashi's minions had fed to them.

"Fine," Tsunade declared, tossing the papers back on her desk. "She still broke out of her cell and assaulted prison guards."

"She did indeed, and I couldn't be prouder that my daughter's finally starting to stand up for herself. If you admit you had no cause to arrest Hinata, you can hardly complain that she chose to leave. Normally I'd be demanding reparation from your office for the gross insult to my clan, but since Hinata saw fit to deal with the matter herself, I'm content to leave it be if you are, Hokage-sama."

Hiashi's words were respectful, but his tone was not. Tsunade was sorely tempted to knock his smug, aristocratic ass through the wall, but Hiashi usually provoked that desire when they talked, and she suppressed the pleasant fantasy without much effort. "All right."

"Thank you for your time, Hokage-sama. I trust the arrest order will be lifted immediately?"

"I'll send it out today, but you might want to encourage Hinata to stay on the grounds of your compound until word makes it around to the patrols currently out in the village. We wouldn't want any more misunderstandings, would we?"

"No, we certainly wouldn't," Hiashi replied. "Good day, Hokage-sama." What that he departed. When he was gone, Tsunade settled for throwing his stack of bought and paid for testimony at the closed door after him. "Arrogant prick," she muttered. "Kakashi's not going to be happy about this," she said with a sigh as she penned the order to call off the manhunt for Hinata, and release Kiba and Shino, since Hiashi's little stunt had cleared them, too.


	5. Side Effects – Tenten

**Chapter 5: Side Effects – Tenten**

* * *

"Help me understand this, Inoichi. What's happening to our village?" Tsunade Senju asked, resisting the urge to rest her head in her hands. Across her desk sat Inoichi Yamanaka, looking more tired and haggard than Tsunade felt, which was saying something. In addition to a few nights without much sleep, his daughter's condition had to be weighing on him. Of everyone caught up in the market riot, Ino was the only one who hadn't recovered yet; she remained in a coma, her mind gravely wounded. They knew what had happened to her; Naruto had confirmed that she had entered his mind. The 'why' remained elusive, and would probably have to wait until Ino woke up.

"I don't know," he admitted. "It's clearly some form of attack, but emotional assault on this scale is something I've never encountered before. I couldn't replicate it if I tried, and I don't know of anyone in the Elemental Nations who could." Scattered across the table in front of them were piles of reports relating to the second incident of 'temporary mass insanity' like the marketplace riot, this one occurring in an upscale residential district.

Hundreds of people covering an area of more than a square mile had been consumed by insatiable lust in the late night hours. There weren't many injuries, but there was still fallout; those affected had been driven out of their right minds, and the amount of regrettable sex that had apparently occurred was significant, with most people awake at the time copulating with the nearest available partner. It would have been much worse if not for the fact that more than 90% of the people in the affected area were asleep at the time, and apparently unconsciousness was a defense against the psychic assault.

There were also rumors of a similar event a day earlier in a different residential area, but it seemed to have affected only a handful of people and no witnesses had come forward.

When Shizune and not one but two ANBU messengers burst into her office at the same time, the Hokage felt a headache coming on. It was going to be another bad day. Tsunade turned to Shizune first. "Yes?"

"Sakura is missing," Shizune said. "She disappeared from her hospital room at some point between first and second check-in last night."

Tsunade felt a chill. That wasn't like her apprentice. "Naruto left without checking out too, did she go with him?"

Shizune shook her head. "No; he hasn't seen her, she hasn't been to her apartment and her family hasn't talked to her before her collapse."

One of the ANBU agents, a man wearing a mask with a sparrow on it, spoke up. "I don't know if this is related, but that Iwa spy post we were set to raid at dawn was abandoned last night. The Rock ninja collapsed their base and made a run for the border. They crossed before we could get word to the border patrols, so they're in the wind."

Tsunade glanced at Inoichi, and saw the Yamanaka patriarch thinking the same thing. "Sakura was the first one to be affected by this chain of unexplained incidents," Tsunade said slowly.

"I see what you're saying. Could this all have been directed at her?" Inoichi agreed.

"Why would Iwa go to all this trouble for one chuunin?" Tsunade argued.

"You're underestimating Sakura, sensei," Shizune chipped in. "She's already a better medical ninja than anyone they have, and she's been your apprentice for years. Any of the other villages would probably like to steal her, even at the cost of unveiling a new weapon."

"Fuck…" Tsunade muttered. "Okay, what's your bad news?" She glanced at the second ANBU standing in front of her desk.

"Message from Suna, highest priority; their village has been attacked and the Kazekage has been abducted by unknown adversaries. They're requesting help."

"Lovely," Tsunade replied. _The Akatsuki must be making their move._ Jiraiya had briefed her on the movements of the shadowy terrorist group and their interest in jinchuuriki like Gaara, the current Kazekage of Suna. She'd hoped to have more time to deal with them, but it was not to be. Tsunade wanted to focus on Sakura, but this was important too. Tsunade pointed to the second ANBU messenger. "Take a message to Kakashi. Tell him to turn out the hunter-nin to find Sakura Haruno; start from her hospital room and determine if she was removed from the village somehow."

When that ANBU nodded and departed, Tsunade moved on. "Guide a sensor team out to that collapsed Iwa base, I want to know anything they can find out about it," Tsunade commanded the first ANBU messenger, who vanished in a puff of smoke.

Tsunade turned to Shizune. "Contact Maito Gai and tell him to round up Neji, Lee and Tenten and have them report here. Send for Naruto and Kurenai Yuuhi too." That should form a sufficiently powerful team to deal with whatever was going on in Suna. Tsunade had considered sending Kakashi, but with the troubles in Konoha she needed him here investigating these mysterious bouts of temporary mass insanity. For a mission like this she also needed to send a medic. With Sakura missing and Ino in a coma that left Shizune and Hinata as her combat-capable medics; Hinata hadn't taken to medical ninjutsu as naturally as Sakura and Ino but she was competent.

_No, Hinata may not be up on charges but she's still on my shit list,_ Tsunade decided. _I'm not sending her anywhere until she earns back my trust._

"Shizune, you go with them in case the Kazekage is wounded when you find him," Tsunade said with a grimace. She didn't want to sacrifice the support of her other apprentice, but it would have to be done. "Tell Iruka he's picking up your duties here in the Tower until you get back."

"Yes, Tsunade-sama," Shizune murmured before departing.

* * *

"Slow down, Naruto."

Glancing over his shoulder as he leapt from one tree branch to the next at high speed, Naruto saw Maito Gai, commander of the group sent to reinforce Suna sailing through the air next to him. "Gaara's in trouble," Naruto exclaimed, worry gnawing at him. "I have to help him!" What he had really wanted to do was look for Sakura when he heard she was missing, but the Hokage had been firm; he wasn't a tracker, so the Kazekage rescue took precedence.

Kurenai Yuuhi frowned at him. "We share your concern Naruto, but not all of this squad's members have your stamina," she chided the jinchuuriki. "If half the team is exhausted when battle commences victory may very well turn into defeat. We're not going to reach Suna's territory today in any case, so slow down and pay more attention to your allies. You're not off on your own anymore."

Naruto was surprised by the irritation and anxiety he could see in Gai and Kurenai; it mirrored his own, but jounin usually controlled themselves better than that. Scanning the others Naruto noticed Neji and Lee looked fairly tense and concerned as well, while Tenten and Shizune just looked tired. Chastened, he slowed down and let the others set the pace. Seeing the wisdom in Kurenai's words – whoever took out Gaara had to be strong and he'd need allies to stop them – Naruto gradually relaxed and saw the others do the same. They were still in the forest when the sun sank to the horizon and Gai called a halt. "We've made good time today," he declared. "We'll make camp for the night, and tomorrow we should reach our allies."

Naruto produced a multitude of shadow clones that quickly did most of the work of setting up camp, while Lee and Gai gathered firewood and water and the others prepared a quick meal. After dinner Gai rose from his seat on a log and stretched. "I'm going to go scout ahead for a bit. You should all get some rest." The green-clad senior jounin departed, and the remaining ninja exchanged a glance.

"I'm going to go find that hot spring we spotted before we made camp and take a soak," Kurenai announced, rising to her feet in a graceful motion. She raised an eyebrow at Shizune and Tenten.

"Sure," Shizune agreed.

"Okay," Tenten chimed in. "I could use a hot bath after the pace Naruto set today."

The three women paused at the edge of the clearing, and Kurenai gave Naruto, Neji and Lee a vaguely threatening look. "I know I won't catch anyone else – especially any students of Jiraiya – near the spring while we're bathing, because I know some really fun genjutsu that will even work on peeping byakugan." Then she sauntered off with a grin, Shizune and Tenten trailing behind.

In the following silence around the campfire, Neji, Lee and Naruto exchanged a wary look. "I'm going to bed," Neji announced.

"Me too," Lee murmured quietly, putting action to word and disappearing into his tent.

Neji gave Naruto a critical look when he didn't speak up or budge. Granted he hadn't seen the younger man for six years, but the gleam in his eye looked familiar. Deciding it was his duty to try and save his fellow shinobi from folly, he spoke up. "Kurenai Yuuhi is well versed in demonic illusions, including the Hell Viewing Technique. Shizune Kato is more than capable of dosing you with some poisons that will make the next few days rather unpleasant. Tenten is incredibly accurate with thrown weapons, and she knows exactly where to aim to inflict painful but nonlethal wounds. None of them are easily taken by surprise. I'm just giving you fair warning."

Naruto put on a wide-eyed expression of affronted innocence that would have done his sensei proud. "Neji, I would never dream of doing something as low and crude as peeping on our lovely comrades while they bathe. I'm wounded by the very suggestion!"

Neji gave Naruto a level look before disappearing into his own tent.

Naruto gave the cursedly perceptive Hyuuga a few minutes to settle down before surreptitiously performing a substitution with one of his shadow clones guarding the area. "As if I could just go to bed after _that_," the blond muttered incredulously under his breath as he made his way toward the hot spring.

Kurenai had thrown down a gauntlet with that parting threat, issuing a challenge that Naruto, as Jiraiya's apprentice, couldn't turn down. Now he was _morally obligated_ to peep on the trio of kunoichi, and do so without getting caught. His pride wouldn't allow any less. Fortunately, six years under Jiraiya's tutelage had provided him with plenty of experience in viewing women's baths and getting away unobserved.

* * *

Hinata Hyuuga fumed silently as she ran through the forest at dusk. It wasn't enough that the Hokage had subjected her to the indignity of arrest, but even after her father had brought Tsunade up short, the village's leader obviously still carried a grudge. There was no other possible reason why she hadn't sent Hinata to accompany Naruto to Suna. They belonged together! Even a woman as dense as the Hokage had to see that. But the evidence spoke plainly. Tsunade had sent her own assistant as the squad medic for the team to Suna even though Hinata was almost as capable a field medic and better in a fight than Shizune.

For a moment Hinata's train of thought ran into her long-standing respect for Tsunade Senju, but against the force of her outrage and devotion to the man she was _meant_ to be with, it was little more than a speed bump. No, the Hokage was simply being foolish, or jealous, and Hinata couldn't let that keep her away from _her_ Naruto. Fortunately, her clan's information network was without peer, so she had learned of the mission to Suna less than an hour after it left. As the Hyuuga heiress she also had more freedom of movement outside the village than most active duty ninja. The unhappy looks of the chuunin guarding the gate when Hinata had left confirmed her suspicions that the Hokage intended to sideline her, but she'd had the foresight to pick up a piece of clan-related business from her father that would take her to the Land of Wind anyways, so they couldn't stop her from leaving.

Hiashi had been happy to help her find an excuse to leave Konoha, seeing it as another sign of her new assertiveness. Privately, Hinata didn't care what her father thought her motives were. If her actions made him happy, all the better; it would make him more likely to give his blessing when she got around to telling him that she would be marrying Naruto.

First though, Hinata had to make Naruto aware of that inevitable outcome, and she couldn't do that if he was sent away from her.

Hinata had followed the road until she was out of sight of Konoha, then set off on Naruto's trail. She'd been a member of a tracking squad for six years, and even without the byakugan she could have traced the path of the Kazekage rescue squad. With the byakugan she was able to trail them far past even her sensei Kurenai's ability to detect her, shadowing their progress all day.

Hinata had debated simply catching up and joining them, but that might have created friction with the three jounin leading the team, so she had decided to trail them to Suna where she could innocently 'run into' Naruto. She chafed at every moment away from her beloved, but thinking about how happy he would be to see her kept Hinata satisfied.

When evening fell Hinata found a sheltered spot outside of the range of Naruto's clone lookouts. She was settling down to sleep when one of her periodic checks with the byakugan showed her something interesting. All three of the squad's kunoichi were bathing in a steaming hot spring nearby, and her Naruto was carefully creeping towards them.

Hinata considered that for a moment. She knew her Naruto would never stray from her after her declaration of love to him, but she supposed she had to make allowances for him being young, male, and a student of the legendary pervert Jiraiya. Still, that didn't mean she shouldn't get to work making sure he had eyes only for her. A devilish glint came to Hinata's eyes as she decided on a course of action to make sure that if her Naruto thought about this night in the future, it would be thoughts of _her._

* * *

Naruto had to hand it to Kurenai, Shizune and Tenten. The two jounin really knew their stuff, and Tenten had become a lot more skilled as a kunoichi in the last six years. He only really remembered the brown-haired weapons mistress from her crushing defeat at Temari's hands in the Chuunin Exam, but after carefully skirting the fourth trap he found blocking his way, he was impressed with her talent. No two traps were the same, though all of them would have caused both loud noises and pointy things stabbing sensitive pieces of anatomy if triggered. Naruto also found that he had to be very careful moving through the thick undergrowth, as someone – probably Shizune – had dusted the leaves of plants near the trail with a powder that smelled like a powerful paralytic.

But if Tenten and Shizune's traps were solid, Kurenai's were masterful. Six years earlier Naruto wouldn't have made it anywhere close to the spring, because back then he hadn't known anything about genjutsu traps. Only a master of the art could produce them, but once placed they were designed to ensnare the next person who got near them in an illusion.

Since most genjutsu masters happened to be females who were no more inclined to be peeped upon than their peers, however, Jiraiya was a master of detecting and avoiding them, and he'd passed his wisdom on to his pupil. Skirting the traps slowed Naruto down, but they didn't stop him and his reward, as he peered between some bushes on a hill above the steaming hot spring, was an amazing view of a trio of bathing lovelies.

Kurenai, who Naruto guessed to be in her mid-thirties, was a vision of beauty in full bloom. Her sleek, athletic body and raven hair glistened as droplets trickled down her flawless form. Large, firm breasts that had not yet begun to sag stood out proudly, and her hips flared in appealing curves below her narrow waist.

Shizune, by contrast, was the same age but slightly shorter than Kurenai and far more slender, her hips narrower and her bust less impressive, but just as perfectly formed. Naruto recalled being clasped to that bosom more than once, both from the demonstrative medic-nin's hugs and from being carried away from the field where the Sannin battled back when they met. Naruto regretted being too young back then to fully appreciate that experience, and resolved to – if possible – find a way to confirm if those lovely mounds were as pleasant to he held against as he remembered.

Tenten was fifteen years the junior of the Kurenai and Shizune, and as she relaxed in the steamy water Naruto was struck by how toned the bun-headed kunoichi's body was. Her smooth skin flowed over lithe, rippling muscle, showing the rewards of Maito Gai's relentless physical training even on a decidedly feminine form. Tenten's chest couldn't compare to her senior's, but Naruto, like his master, appreciated the female body in all its forms, and Tenten's small breasts had a cute appeal all their own.

Suppressing the urge to giggle – he wasn't so far gone as to emulate _that_ habit of his master – Naruto slipped a small dark-covered book out of a pocket and started writing in it, a broad grin on his face. Like Jiraiya, he'd taken to making notes to keep precious memories like these fresh.

Naruto was busily recording his impressions when some instinct made him freeze in mid pen stroke, sensing like a deer in a wolf's sights that he was no longer alone. His mind raced as he hid his book in his jacket. Had one of the kunoichi set clones of their own on guard?

"Are you enjoying the view, Naruto?" The female voice whispering him was low, sultry and dangerous – and it belonged to none of the three women who were supposed to be nearby.

"Hinata?" Naruto whispered in disbelief and a little bit of fear. His peeping was perfectly innocent of course; he'd never do anything more than look, but did _she_ know that? Naruto's unfortunately vivid imagination summoned up some cringe-worthy scenarios of what well placed Gentle First strikes could do to… vulnerable parts of his anatomy.

"Of course, lover," Hinata's breath was warm in his ear, and he swallowed hard when he felt Hinata's generous bosom pressed against his back as she knelt behind him. After a nervous moment Naruto twitched when he felt her _lick _his ear, and her arms wrapped around him, her fingers tracing idle figures down his chest that felt like spirals.

Naruto suppressed a groan. Okay, she didn't seem _mad_ at him, at least. He was rapidly growing aware of a new source of discomfort, however. Viewing the trio of bathing lovelies below had already provoked a rather male reaction in him, and now with Hinata draped over him and touching him, her scent filling his nostrils with each breath, his pants were feeling decidedly constraining. "What brings you our way?" Naruto asked quietly.

"I have some clan business to take care of in Suna, so I was travelling in the same direction," she murmured next to his ear, her hands trailing lower, teasing over his stomach now. "When what should my byakugan spy when I was setting up camp but my naughty boyfriend being very bad and peeping on his squad mates?" Her voice was abruptly ominous. Quick as a striking snake Hinata's hand slipped beneath his waistband and wrapped around the embarrassingly hard evidence of his arousal. "I guess you are enjoying the view," she commented, following her words with a soft bite to his earlobe.

Managing not to give himself away with a gasp as Hinata's warm, soft fingers gripped him, Naruto realized he was sweating, and tried not to think about the _unpleasant_ things she could do with a grip like that. "Uh, Hinata, I…"

"Shh," she whispered. "I know you're not that kind of guy. You wouldn't stray away from me, would you, Na-ru-to?" Hinata's winsome little-girl appeal was at odds with her hot breath in his ear and the way she was gently starting to stroke his member.

"N-no, of course not, Hinata," he gasped, finding it harder to concentrate on being silent.

"I know this is just the bad influence of that old lecher the Hokage sent you off to train with. My Naruto isn't a dirty pervert peeper, is he?"

"Of coruse not, Hinata," Naruto groaned. "I never wanted to peep on baths, honest. Ero-sennin made me." Naruto could perhaps be forgiven for selling out his sensei and devotion to the art of peeping in an instant under the influence of a beautiful, possessive kunoichi with her hand around his manhood and the twin incentives of not wanting her angry and _really_ not wanting her to stop the amazing, distracting things that hand was doing.

"Good boy," Hinata whispered encouragingly. Naruto shuddered with pleasure as she freed him from the confines of his pants and began teasing him into a frenzy.

Positioned behind him, Hinata couldn't have seen Naruto's blue eyes and white sclera bleed away to reflective silver. Even if she had, the unique nature of Naruto's Kyuubi-gifted dojutsu – known only to the comatose Ino Yamanaka – would have prevented her from realizing what she was seeing. Invisible and undetectable, pressure built in Naruto Uzumaki, an intensity of emotion that reached a critical level before jumping to every mind in range. Maito Gai, Konoha's Green Beast, was already too far away to be affected. Neji Hyuuga and Rock Lee were asleep and thus spared from Naruto's power. Hinata Hyuuga, already in sync with her lover's emotions, felt nothing.

Kurenai Yuuhi, Shizune Kato and Tenten, however, were at the mercy of the psychic assault flooding their minds with powerful new emotions and drives.

* * *

Hiding behind bushes on a hill above the hot spring, Naruto and Hinata were thus witness to what followed, though the significance of what they saw was lost on them. It started innocently enough. Shizune, who had generously offered to wash Kurenai's wild mane of raven hair, was rinsing the genjutsu mistress' dark tresses clean when she subtly shifted closer to the other woman, her breasts pressing against Kurenai's back. Eyes intent, Shizune dipped her head and placed a few soft kisses on Kurenai's neck.

Kurenai stiffened, but didn't pull away, her eyes sparking with amusement and a friendly challenge as she twisted around and gave Shizune a critical look. "And what was that, Kato?"

Shizune, with her eyes downcast, looked as demure and innocent as new fallen snow. 'I don't know. What do you want it to be, Yuuhi?"

Kurenai examined Shizune's face critically and then tilted the other woman's chin up to look at her before laughing softly. "How you manage to put on that air of innocence after all those years trawling through gambling dens and red light districts with Tsunade is something I'll never understand. After all, I know how depraved you were even before you left." Kurenai ended that sentence with a smoky, lingering kiss on Shizune's lips that left Tenten staring in stunned silence.

"That's baseless slander," Shizune protested breathily when their lips parted, her argument undermined somewhat by the fact that the way her hands were roaming over Kurenai's lush body was not innocent at all.

"Oh, really? Uzumaki thinks he's the prank king of Konoha, but he always got caught. Did the shinobi academy's female instructors ever figure out who the most prolific panty thief in the history of the institution was?"

Shizune grinned complacently. "Most of them still think Asuma Sarutobi was the culprit. After all, they remembered what a pervert Hiruzen was in his prime, so his son was a natural suspect. I told Rashisa-sensei the truth a few years back, but I was modeling some of the better pieces in my collection for her at the time, so she forgave me."

At this point Tenten was beet red, and there was almost as much steam coming from her ears as the water. When a quiet 'meep' of disbelief escaped her lips, the pair of older kunoichi turned to look at her speculatively. "It occurs to me, Kato," Kurenai noted casually, "that between Maito Gai as a sensei and a civilian family, Tenten here probably hasn't had her Lotus initiation."

"'Lotus initiation'? Is that some taijutsu thing?" Tenten asked nervously, uncomfortably aware of the unsettling, fluttering warmth beneath her stomach that had only gotten stronger watching Kurenai and Shizune kiss and touch each other.

"Oh, this just won't do at all," Shizune said sorrowfully. "Someone has been very derelict in their duties, Yuuhi."

"You're right, Kato. I guess it's up to us to remedy this deficit in the education of our cute subordinate here."

"Ehh?" Tenten hesitated for a fatal moment as the two older kunoichi advanced on her. By the time she processed the expression of naughty amusement on Kurenai's face and the fact that Shizune was looking at her body the way Choji Akimichi looked at barbecued beef, it was too late. Even as it occurred to Tenten to flee, Kurenai and Shizune sat down on either side of her.

"The Lotus initiation can be a one-time learning experience or the beginning of a new life," Kurenai informed her in a throaty purr. "But it's something most kunoichi do eventually."

"W-what is it?" Tenten stammered.

"Finding out how much fun kunoichi can have with each other," Shizune answered.

"EHH?!" Tenten's stunned exclamation was cut off when Shizune firmly grasped her chin, tilted her head back, and planted a rather serious kiss on the young kunoichi's lips. It lasted only a few moments before Tenten flinched away, only to find her back against Kurenai's chest and the older woman's arms gently wrapped around her.

"It's your choice, of course," Kurenai murmured close to her ear. "We'll stop if you want,"

Tenten blinked, her eyes glazed slightly, looking back and forth between the two older kunoichi. "I… umm… I…" Her face got redder with each word. Then Shizune flicked her nipple, and a cute, needy moan escaped Tenten's lips.

"That didn't sound like an objection to me," Shizune observed. Again her lips claimed Tenten's, and this time the young weapons mistress didn't pull away.

* * *

Naruto decided that he'd never been so turned on in his life. He was witnessing a scene his sensei would have killed to see, watching as Kurenai and Shizune had their wicked way with Tenten. Just listening to the cute moans and cries of pleasure coming from the younger kunoichi would have made him rock-hard, and watching every naughty thing being done to elicit them was even better. Add in his own girlfriend's hand sliding up and down his shaft as she whispered incredibly dirty things in his ear, and the young jinchuuriki was in ecstasy.

"I remember my Lotus initiation," Hinata mused. "Or course, that was very different from this." Naruto froze and then groaned quietly at the thought of the innocent Hyuuga heiress in Tenten's place. "I almost didn't have one," Hinata continued. "It's supposed to be a secret between kunoichi, but my father knew about the practice, and privately threatened the weight of his personal displeasure on any Konoha kunoichi who 'initiated' me or Hanabi. He thinks it's a degenerate tradition, and his daughters would never be sent on a mission where they'd need to pleasure another woman anyways."

"Then how…" Naruto gasped.

"Anko Mitarashi heard about my father's threat and decided to flout it just to piss him off. It was about a year ago. She invited me out for drinks and slipped something in mine. I woke up naked and tied to her bed. It was… an enlightening experience." Hinata's voice was slightly distant and dreamy as she recounted the tale. "I don't remember all of it, but I do remember begging. I'm not sure if I was begging her to stop, or _not to_. Anko's terrifying, but also amazing. When I made it home a few days later father saw the rope burns and went ballistic, but I think he's a little scared of Anko because he never did anything about it."

Naruto became aware he was drooling slightly but couldn't manage to care. "Hinata, I…" he gasped, voice laden with need. He wasn't sure how much more he could take.

Hinata's hand released him, but his groan of disappointment died in his throat when she moved around in front of him. Somehow she'd managed to shed her pants and underwear, and her jacket was open, only her fishnet shirt restraining her breasts. "I need you, Naruto," she breathed, her own face flushed, her body betraying her own arousal. "Need me," she whispered.

"Fuck yes," Naruto groaned, wrapping his arms around her as she lowered herself onto him. Feeling and holding and smelling Hinata, her quiet mewls of pleasure a counterpoint to hearing Tenten's more vocal expressions from nearby, Naruto came to a simple conclusion. _I'm in heaven._

* * *

_What the hell…_ Inner Sakura thought irritably as her recently hijacked body returned to consciousness. She felt groggy, ill and nauseous, and her head was ringing with a splitting headache. Her shoulders and jaw ached from being forced into an unnatural position, the cloth gag in her mouth tasted terrible, and her wrists and ankles were hurting and raw from the rope digging tightly into them and binding her to a pair of stakes driven firmly into the ground.

_You got sucker-punched and kidnapped, genius,_ Sakura Haruno observed acerbically from inside her gilded cage in her own mindscape. _Do you have any idea how hard it was to purge the tranquilizers in our blood from in here? Never mind, just don't move, we're not alone._

_I'm touched, Sakura. I didn't know you cared,_ Inner observed. Keeping still and her eyes closed, she listened. Rain was drumming on cloth around her, which meant she was in a tent. Under that constant patter she could hear someone breathing nearby.

_Don't flatter yourself, bitch. This is my body and I'd rather not be a prisoner when I figure out how to evict you, _Sakura shot back.

_Yeah, yeah. Cry me a river,_ Inner replied. Cracking one eye open, she glimpsed an outline of a person; the next flash of lightning showed her the profile of an Iwa kunoichi with long black hair sitting near the tent's open flap. When the other woman's head turned to look at her Inner shut her eye and focused on keeping her breathing slow.

Working carefully and slowly, Inner focused a trickle of chakra into her arms, carefully working at the ropes around her wrists, applying enough enhanced strength to slowly loosen and fray the bonds. This made the coarse rope dig into her already raw skin until it bled, but she grit her teeth and kept going until a weak point in the rope finally parted.

Inner had been quiet and tried to move as little as possible, but something seemed to have alerted the Iwa kunoichi – perhaps instinct – and she got up, crouching over Sakura and scrutinizing her. _C'mon, one more lightning strike,_ Inner pleaded to fate.

_Oh, you're going to use the thunderclap to cover the noise when you knock her out? _Sakura guessed.

_Yeah, something like that,_ Inner replied. A moment later a flash of light played across her closed eyelids. Inner waited a second and then let her hard, silver-flecked jade eyes snap open. The Iwa kunoichi flinched in alarm when their eyes met, but she was too close. Inner grabbed her throat with one hand, silencing her cry of alarm, then pulled herself up into a sitting position, drew back her other arm, and drove her fist into and through the other woman's chest, the rumble of thunder covering the sickening sounds of fist pulverizing bone and pulping a heart.

The look of shock and pain on the Iwa kunoichi's face lasted only a moment before the light faded from her eyes. Inner snorted quietly in contempt, then yanked her fist out of the hole she'd punched clean through the other woman's sternum. She was vaguely aware of Sakura retching in her cage, but paid it no mind, freeing her legs and yanking out the cursed gag, then stealing the dead woman's weapons pouch and surveying its contents, strapping it to her own thigh.

_You… you killed her,_ Sakura complained in a sick tone. _You used my hands to…_

_Grow up, Sakura. That was a lot kinder than what they'd do to us in Iwa._ Inner absently wiped the blood and gore from her arm on the dead woman's clothes before carefully peeking out of the tent.

In the pounding rain she had no way of quickly figuring out how many more captors surrounded her. It couldn't be many, because the camp was small with only a handful of tents. She could see two more Iwa ninja wrapped in great cloaks and feeding a fire under a lean-to that they were keeping burning, and she could see a sleeping form in one of the other tents.

Deciding that she needed to move quickly before she was found out, Inner took a deep breath and then henged into the appearance of the woman she'd just killed and stepped out into the rain. The pair around the fire spotted her immediately and frowned. "What are you doing, Kasami? Hideki said not to leave the Leaf bitch alone."

Keeping her pace casual and the pair of kunai in her sleeves hidden, Inner shrugged, then glanced back at the tent and spat on the ground. Without having heard Kasami's voice she couldn't emulate it, and dared not speak. Her body language seemed to have struck the right tone, however, because the one who hadn't spoken snorted and turned back to the fire. The one who had challenged Inner continued staring at her quizzically, however. As she stepped fully into the firelight, she saw suspicion and then comprehension cross his face. Without hesitating she struck.

The Iwa ninja who'd turned his back to her died instantly, a kunai driven upward into the base of his skull. His companion got out a shout of alarm, and he dodged enough that instead of cutting his throat Inner's left-handed blow towards him sank the kunai into the flesh of his neck. He fell, blood pouring from the wound, but he wasn't dead. Cursing, Inner grabbed the one tagged kunai the dead woman had possessed, armed it with a pulse of her chakra, and threw it into the tent where the sleeper was already awake and moving in the shadows.

Not waiting to see what happened, Inner sprinted into the trees as the explosion tore the camp apart behind her. Knowing there were probably at least two lookouts still unaccounted for, Inner struck a balance between speed and avoiding the inevitable ambush. Deciding to move the coming fight to a Leaf ninja's natural territory, she leapt up into the branches above. Two jumps later another Iwa ninja – this one shockingly young, perhaps fourteen and still a skinny boy – dropped from the canopy, but he lacked the split-second timing in arboreal maneuvers Leaf ninja were trained for, and Inner had little difficulty twisting around his kunai stroke, taking only a light graze to the leg. Her return kick, backed with her full strength, sent him flying into a tree trunk hard enough to embed his mangled body in the splintered wood. Pouring on the speed, Inner kept running.

* * *

Rinsei's shout woke Hideki Kobashi. Like any ninja who survived to the rank of jounin, Hideki had long since trained himself to shift from sleep to full alertness instantly. He was already sitting up when a tagged kunai buried itself in the dirt next to his bedroll.

Moving on instinct, Hideki dug his hands into the soil, charged it with his chakra and turned it to the consistency of liquid, his body and bedroll sinking into the ground like water. The concussion of the blast still travelled through the ground and battered Hideki, but he survived and reversed his momentum, surfacing at the edge of the camp.

Once glance told Hideki that Rinsei and the other lookout were dying and dead respectively, and he didn't bother checking on Kasami. If the prisoner was loose, the young woman was already dead. Anger burned in Hideki's chest as he spotted the damnable Leaf kunoichi's footprints and took off after her. Half of his team, dead, just like that.

_Damn it, was Kasami right? Was this some twisty, convoluted Konoha trap? That pink-haired girl was sedated heavily enough to keep a rhino in a coma, I dosed her myself. How is she awake?_ Pushing aside his musings, Hideki followed Sakura's footprints until they vanished, then swore. Had she taken to the trees?

A familiar whistle made Hideki look up as Monoba Idata, the second sentry, stopped on a tree limb above him. "This way, boss. I have a bead on her."

Relief flooded Hideki. Monoba was still alive, and with his squad's chakra sensor locked onto the runaway, they might still be able to run her down. Without a word Hideki took off after Monoba.

"Where's Kisei?" Hideki asked.

Monoba made a face. "The new kid? He didn't make it. Found his body around the time I picked up pinky's trail."

"Damn it!" Hideki swore. Losing any subordinate hurt, and he'd known Kasami almost as long as Monoba. But he really didn't look forward having to break the news to Kisei's parents; the kid had just made chuunin, and this was his first mission outside the Land of Earth. He wouldn't be able to go back to Iwa and face his superiors unless it was with that pink-haired bitch in chains before him.

* * *

Inner Sakura was not happy. Her displeasure stemmed from several sources. It was dark and cloudy, so even with eyes trained to operate at night it was still hard to see. It was also pouring rain, and she didn't have a cloak, so she was soon soaked to the bone, and only her exertion was keeping her from feeling the chill.

She also had no clue where the hell she was, though as she kept running without seeing anything familiar, she started to suspect she was somewhere in the Land of Earth. That was bad enough, but without even the moon and stars Inner had no idea if she was running towards the border with Fire or away from it.

Stopping to wait for sunrise wasn't an option either. Inner could hear pursuit in the distance. Despite direction changes and efforts to hide her passage, whoever was chasing her had kept on her tail for hours. After the initial burst of adrenaline faded, Inner was finding it harder to keep up her pace; her body had been pumped full of drugs and tied up for the last few days, and she ached all over.

If that wasn't bad enough, Sakura had recovered enough from her shock to start harping on about the lives Inner had taken, and Inner didn't have the energy or concentration to silence her imprisoned other half.

_If we have to fight again, don't kill any more of them! You can beat them by knocking them out or breaking some bones._ Sakura chided her.

Inner ground her teeth. _Pulling punches takes more effort and I'd prefer that whoever attacks not get up and come after us again or go get help from his Iwa friends. You know, you never complained when Sasuke was hip-deep in the blood of fallen enemies._

_If it's too hard for you Inner, let me out of here and I'll take care of it,_ Sakura shot back snidely.

_I swear to god Sakura, if you don't shut up I'll crack our skull open and dig out the part of our brain you live in with a rusty kunai! _That threat at least shocked Sakura into a few minutes of silence which was, of course, when Inner's pursuers decided to attack.

A pair of grasping hands made of mud shot out of the ground in front of Inner, and she didn't spot them in time to avoid them. They grabbed her ankles and she fell face-first into the wet loam of the forest floor. Spitting out dirt and swearing, Inner kicked the grasping hands apart and rolled sideways as a handful of shuriken buried themselves in the soil she'd been lying on. Before Inner was halfway to her feet a tall figure loomed over her, a kunai in each hand plunging towards her. Inner fired a snap kick at his shin. He dodged and she landed only a glancing hit, but he lost his footing in the slick mud. His kunai strikes went off course. One slashed diagonally down Inner's face, slicing open a trail from the right side of her forehead down across the bridge of her nose to her left cheek. The other blade sank into the meat of her left shoulder, and Inner cried out when the pain hit her.

Inner staggered to her feet as the kunai-wielder recovered and drew a new weapon to replace the one buried in her flesh. More shuriken rained on Inner from the trees. She avoided most of them, but two opened long gashed on her left arm, which had gone numb from the kunai strike and wasn't obeying her. Blood from the slash above her right eyes was flowing down, blinding her.

Robbed of one arm and one eye for the moment, Inner watched warily as the shuriken thrower dropped from the trees on the other side of her from the one who'd stabbed her. "Surrender now and maybe I'll let you live," the larger – and presumably older – of the pair ordered her.

Inner bared a bloody grin. "So you fuckers can rape and torture us back in Iwa? I think I'll take my chances right here, thanks." Spinning away from him she charged the shorter shuriken thrower. He raised kunai of his own to meet her charge, while the commander's footsteps thundered behind her.

Just before reaching her target Inner darted left behind a tree of the right thickness and spun, kicking it with all of the chakra-boosted strength left to her command. The blow thundered into the wood, and on the other side of the tree facing her pursuer, jagged splinters of bark and wood flew out of the tree in a wide arc like a scattergun blast, felling him.

Then a kunai sank into Inner's back just below her last rib, and she screamed, falling to her knees from the shock of the blow.

"Don't care about the bounty anymore, bitch. You're so going to die," Inner's last assailant grated. He grabbed a handful of her hair and wrenched her head back. She felt steel against her neck as he prepared to cut her throat.

Running on nothing but adrenaline and shear meanness, Inner grabbed his wrist with her functional hand and squeezed, crushing every bone in his wrist before driving the same elbow back into his ribs, breaking two of them. Painfully rising to her feet, feeling weak and light-headed from pain and blood loss, Sakura turned and drove a kick into his face that pulverized his skull. "Fuck you," she gasped, then fell back to her knees, head swimming.

_Don't pass out you horrid bitch. Don't you dare pass out!_ Sakura yelled at her.

_Fuck you, too,_ Inner shot back. _Help me, if you don't want to die here._ With a shaky hand, Inner reached behind her and grasped the hilt of the kunai in her back, braced herself, and yanked it out. The new pain hammered her, and blackness ate at the edges of her vision, but she held on, and directed what chakra she still had into healing the wound.

Inner managed to stop some of the bleeding and went to work on the shoulder wound, but before she could do much for that, her available chakra petered out. "Got to find help, or shelter from this storm, or we won't make it," Inner muttered. Stealing the great cloak of her last victim she wrapped it around her before she stumbled off into the trees. She didn't have the energy to check and see if the guy she'd shot gunned with tree bark was dead. She could only hope he didn't pursue, because she was out of tricks.

Inner knew that she was still losing blood at an alarming rate: it was still trickling down her face and arm, and the two deeper wounds were still seeping despite her best efforts. She was close to giving up on moving and finding a sheltered place to either recover or die when she glimpsed firelight through the trees. Pushing the last of her energy into her legs, Inner made it to a small clearing covered by a tarp hung between trees to keep it dry and lit by a cheery campfire. It was a small camp, just two men sitting on logs.

Inner hadn't had the energy to be stealthy, so both heard her coming and were looking in surprise at the point where she staggered out of the trees into the firelight, deathly pale and covered in blood. Inner got only a brief glimpse of the pair as her knees buckled. Both wore black cloaks with a curious emblem repeated over the surface: red clouds with white outlines. One was a youngish man with slicked-back silver hair and vivid purple eyes. The other was a massive fellow wearing a hitai-ate from a village Inner didn't recognize. The only visible part of his face beneath bandana and half-mask were his odd eyes – green irises set in red sclera.

"Please… help…" Inner gasped out before she passed out and sprawled in the dirt.

Hidan and Kakuzu exchanged a puzzled glance before looking back at the unconscious kunoichi with a Konoha headband now bleeding out at their feet.


End file.
